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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30029703">Let It Consume You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrina/pseuds/Syrina'>Syrina</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bachelor-verse [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Voltron: Legendary Defender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gay Disaster Keith (Voltron), Gay Disaster Shiro (Voltron), M/M, Pining, Romance, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Shiro figures out Keith is oblivious, Shiro is the Bachelor, Shiro you need to calm yourself, Thristy Shiro, Veteran Shiro (Voltron)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 23:54:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>38,907</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30029703</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrina/pseuds/Syrina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Shiro has thirteen men vying for his affections but only one matters.</p><p> </p><p>Or: Don't Let It Go To Your Head - from Shiro's POV for twice the dumbassery</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Keith/Shiro (Voltron)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bachelor-verse [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2209104</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>256</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Because I know you all wanted it.</p><p>It probably won't be a scene for scene retelling but we'll hit the key points. It is strongly recommended you read Don't Let it Go to Your Head before this so you can understand one side of the dumbass coin.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Let It Consume You</b>
</p><p> </p><p>“No.”</p><p> </p><p>“But Shiiiirrrooooo.”</p><p> </p><p>“Not happening, Matt.”</p><p> </p><p>“But what if—?”</p><p> </p><p>“Nah.”</p><p> </p><p>“How about—?”</p><p> </p><p>“No.”</p><p> </p><p>Matt downed the last of his drink and pouted. “What was that advice your therapist gave you? Say yes to opportunities?”</p><p> </p><p>“Doesn’t count. She never met you.”</p><p> </p><p>At per a usual Thursday night, Matt and Shiro were seated at the local bar for drinks. And as per for the last month and a half, Matt was urging him to throw his hat into the ring as the bachelor on Altea’s Finest.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wondered if he could trade in or expire friendships at this point or if a decade meant they were in too deep.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiiiirrrroooo,” Matt whined again. “Come on, Sugar Bear! What do you have to lose?”</p><p> </p><p>“Dignity, pride, self-image,” Shiro said, ticking them off on his fingers.</p><p> </p><p>Matt snorted. “Like you valued those things in the first place.”</p><p> </p><p>“I at least had them,” Shiro argued back.</p><p> </p><p>“This could be a great opportunity. Meet some guys, put yourself out there. You can’t tell me that you’re happy with your one-and-done lifestyle. Isn’t the other half of the bed getting cold?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro regretted opening up to Matt about his dating life after one too many drinks one night. Even his therapist, Rosalynn, had pointed out how unhealthy it was. But ever since Adam…</p><p> </p><p>A night with Shiro went like this: he went to his usual haunts and scoped out anyone lingering by themselves. If he liked their look, he approached them, turned on the charm, and waited to be given the green light. If he got the green light, they went back to usually the other guy’s apartment and Shiro exhausted himself but not to the point where he couldn’t call a cab. He never slept there, never asked for their number. And when the itch was back he rinsed and repeated.</p><p> </p><p>Sex calmed him, tired him out enough that he could at least be guaranteed a four hour night. It was the one activity—that didn’t involve narcotics—that turned his brain off because it required his full attention. He couldn’t be thinking about the stretch of no man’s land, or the screams of his comrades, or the doctor’s face when they gave him the verdict if there was a warm body beneath him, dependent on him to get them off. So, sex checked two boxes: it was physically exhausting and it assuaged Shiro’s need to people-please.</p><p> </p><p>If the table were flipped and Matt was the one living like this, Shiro knew he would call it concerning. He would tell Matt that he needed to make actual connections, that he had to work to conquer his inner demons rather than let them control him.</p><p> </p><p>That not everyone out there would react as Adam had.</p><p> </p><p>But the tables were not flipped and Matt wasn’t as condescending as Shiro. He was just annoyingly persistent about this reality TV show.</p><p> </p><p>“Aren’t these guys usually wealthy?” Shiro pointed out.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re well-off enough. You’re educated. A decorated war veteran.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro flinched and flagged down the bar tender for another whiskey. Stepping on a land mine and getting his entire unit killed and somehow surviving didn’t make him a hero. It just made him damn lucky.</p><p> </p><p>“Plus you’re hot as fuck,” Matt ended with. “The guys would be tripping over themselves to get a piece of you.”</p><p> </p><p>“And you actually think a reality TV show where people are only there to boost their followers and become famous is somewhere where I can find a guy to have a real connection with?”</p><p> </p><p>Matt grimaced as Shiro poked a wide hole in his argument. “Stranger things have happened. Melenor and Alfor met on there.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro raised a pointed brow. “And who else?”</p><p> </p><p>“Tigress and Skeleon.”</p><p> </p><p>“They’re divorced.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes but they were happily married for nearly seven years and have two kids. Then there was Pyra and Iaos,” Matt continued.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s in jail!”</p><p> </p><p>“But they’re still married. And think of how romantic it would be, writing letters, conjugal visits, attending court dates. Modern romance at it’s finest.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was pretty sure Matt had been dropped at some point as a baby.</p><p> </p><p>“Look, Matt,” he said rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I know you guys are struggling to find someone and I do feel sorry for you, but I am not interested. There’s nothing you can say or do to make me interested. So I would appreciate it if you would drop it.”</p><p> </p><p>Matt crossed his arms over the bar, considering his empty glass with a serious air. “What if,” he said, seeming to chew on the words, “I promised you there would be at least one decent guy in the set?”</p><p> </p><p>“Still not interested.” Shiro went to take a sip and realized his drink was already empty again.</p><p> </p><p>“Keith’s going to be on there.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro lowered his glass. “Keith… Katie’s Keith?”</p><p> </p><p>Keith was a myth to Shiro, always used in conjunction with Katie in all of Matt’s stories of her from high school onwards. For the longest time, he had thought he was a cat. To be fair, Matt had deliberately misled him. “I tried to pick him up and he scratched at me” and “So I got the spray bottle and he hissed at me” were only some of them many dubious context clues in Matt’s stories.</p><p> </p><p>“The one and the same. So you’d have a least one guy to pick from if all the others turned out to be complete assholes.”</p><p> </p><p>“Isn’t he a little young?”</p><p> </p><p>“He’s twenty-seven. Oh my god, Shiro you aren’t forty. You’ve probably picked up and screwed guys younger than him.” Matt turned in his bar stool. “Look, forget all that about making connections and putting yourself out there. You don’t even have to fall in love, just take your shirt off and make your pecs dance for the cameras. You could pick Keith, you two do the required meetings afterwards, then you can go your separate ways like all the other couples on the show. Only you’ll be $80k richer.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro choked on his own spit. “$80k?”</p><p> </p><p>“Did I not mention that?” Matt mused with a shit-eating grin. “Must have slipped my mind.”</p><p> </p><p>“You might have lead with that!”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wasn’t hurting by any means. He had dodged a bullet with Adam as they had never actually tied the knot so it had been a messy break-up, not a messy divorce with financial implications. Even still living on a one income household had been an adjustment. And it wasn’t like Shiro was putting his astrophysics degree to good use. He was mostly working in shelters, soup kitchens, and veteran outreach programs. While those jobs left him feeling fulfilled, they weren’t actually padding his bank account.</p><p> </p><p>Of course, he could solve all of his problems but touching the money his father had left him. Left him maybe weren’t the correct words. Gifted to him by default would be better. Shiro had no doubt that if the man knew he was about to keel over, he would have either spent or buried it rather than let Shiro have it. But he hadn’t been psychic and Shiro was his only son so…</p><p> </p><p>He had invested it into an account and hadn’t looked at it since. He knew at some point he would have to make a decision. His gut told him to donate it but he always hesitated to perform the action.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had a dream. One he hadn’t even told Matt. Of a house with a yard for a dog, outside of the city and suburbs but not so isolated that they couldn’t drive out to dinner on a whim. Of a breakfast nook and windows that let in the sun. Of a bedroom with a bed big enough to indulge him and a tub big enough to soak into and a shower big enough to...well.</p><p> </p><p>And of someone to come home to. A hand in his and a warmth that would settle by him at night, comforted by the assurance that it would still be there in the morning. Once that person had been Adam; now it was shapeless figure, more a dream than the actual house.</p><p> </p><p>The money that he father had left him could pay for that.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro knew it was selfish. That money could help thousands. Not just some half-baked, never-gonna-happen dream Shiro had.</p><p> </p><p>He had talked about the dilemma with Rosalynn. She had assured him in her calmly, grandmotherly way that wanting things for himself didn’t make him a selfish monster. That he was allowed to dream and having a nest egg wasn’t a punishable offense.</p><p> </p><p>And like all of her advice, it went in one ear and out the other.</p><p> </p><p>Eighty thousand though. He could donate to get the kids’ room fixed up at the shelter and secure more food purchases and still have a bit left over for himself.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe it was the alcohol in his system. Good choices never started with alcohol in his system.</p><p> </p><p>“How long’s filming?” Shiro asked him.</p><p> </p><p>Matt’s grin widened. “About three months. Like I said, best case scenario: you fall in love and have a fairytale romance with your Prince Charming. Worst case? You run the gambit with Keith and you both get to laugh your way to the bank about fooling the masses. Either way, you come up winning, Sugar Bear.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro tasted the remains of whiskey as he bit his lip. “I’ll think about it,” he told Matt.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t sleep.</p><p> </p><p>Partly his PTSD was to blame but, even before he had went overseas, Shiro had had a rough time getting a full eight hours. His mind wouldn’t quit enough.</p><p> </p><p>And that night was no different.</p><p> </p><p>So he got on Instagram and, through no conscious choice mind you, found Keith’s page. So sue him, he wanted a face to put to a name to his possible co-conspirator.</p><p> </p><p>For the first hour, his search was fruitless. Keith’s page was mostly pictures of bikes and cars. While he did linger over a few images of a cherry red motorcycle lovingly being restored, they weren’t what he was looking for so he kept scrolling.</p><p> </p><p>The most he found was the edge of a finger in one pic.</p><p> </p><p>He struck gold, though when a tagged picture took him to Katie’s page and the #shitIdotomyroommate tag popped up.</p><p> </p><p>The first video started playing, showing the back of a man in baggy clothes at the stove. Dark hair was pulled back into a low, messy ponytail. As he moved to reach for something, the neckline of his hoodie slid down to reveal the sharp cut of a pale shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>He had a freckle on the back of his shoulder blade.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro loved freckles.</p><p> </p><p>Katie, who was obviously holding the camera, crept forward, the lens zooming in to show a plate of cookies to the right of the man. A hand slunk into frame, reaching.</p><p> </p><p>A spoon came down, missing her hand only by a few inches. “Pidge, I swear to God!”</p><p> </p><p>The camera turned.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro forgot to breathe.</p><p> </p><p>If someone had went into Shiro’s wet dreams and pulled features from to compile a perfect man, he would have paled to live up to what was before him.</p><p> </p><p>Long, messy hair. A sharp chin with sharper cheekbones. The jut of clavicle visible through his falling neckline (also sporting a freckle). And pretty eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t know how to describe them. They were just pretty. A strange shade of dark blue that almost looked violet with dark lashes.</p><p> </p><p>The video ended on the man’s—Keith’s—furious face and the spoon raised threateningly.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro went to the next video under the tag.</p><p> </p><p>This one started out with Keith apparently asleep on the couch. He was in a tank top this time, the corded muscle of one arm visible over the blanket. His nose twitched as he dreamed.</p><p> </p><p>Katie snuck forward, the camera bobbing with her movements. Exposing her hand into frame, she revealed a fistful of Cheerios that she proceeded to stack on Keith’s forehead while he slept. The video ended with a small tower of Cheerios precariously stacked and Keith’s lashes flickering.</p><p> </p><p>In the next video, they were in what was apparently an auto shop. Shiro recognized some of the décor from pics on Keith’s Instagram. Katie’s voice came from behind the camera, “And now dear viewers, we are going to see how many bad car puns I can get in before my roommate, Keith, punts me into the next century.” The camera turned and Keith was visible hunched over a car engine. His shirt had more holes than fabric but where there should have been smooth skin it was covered in grease.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey Keith,” Katie called out, “what’s worse than raining cats and dogs?”</p><p> </p><p>Keith sighed in a put-upon way.</p><p> </p><p>“Hailing taxis!”</p><p> </p><p>Keith’s lips twitched but he didn’t look up.</p><p> </p><p>“What did Batman say to Robin before they got in the car?” Katie asked. “He said, ‘Robin get in the car.’”</p><p> </p><p>Keith snorted.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you call a VW bus at the top of a hill, Keith?” The camera zoomed in. “Keith, what do you call a VW bus at the top of a hill?”</p><p> </p><p>Keith set aside a dirty rag. He looked to the ceiling, then at the camera. One side of his mouth kicked up into a smile that made Shiro’s chest hurt.“I don’t know, Pidge.” His voice was gravelly, like it wasn’t used a lot. “What do you call a VW bus at the top of a hill?”</p><p> </p><p>Katie zoomed the camera in another a notch. “A miracle.”</p><p> </p><p>The video ended as Keith put his head into his hands and made as if to shut the lid of the car on himself.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro lost the rest of his night and some of his day hours to the tag.</p><p> </p><p>Before work, he called Matt to tell him he would do it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro felt antsy the entire night.</p><p> </p><p>He was Altea’s Finest for the season. The most sought man in the universe (allegedly). Thirteen eligible bachelors were here to meet and date him, all vying for his heart.</p><p> </p><p>And Shiro wanted to toss each and every one of them into the stratosphere.</p><p> </p><p><em>Not Keith, </em>he thought as each man exited the vehicle.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Not Keith.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Not Keith.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>At man number eleven, Shiro wanted to stop the entire production, find Matt, and shake him for his apparent lies.</p><p> </p><p>“You have a tendency,” Rosalynn had pointed out one session, “to become fixated on things that don’t warrant such obsession.”</p><p> </p><p>At the time, she had been commenting on Shiro’s stress over eggshell versus cream wedding invitations. And yes, he knew, he had been using that fixation to avoid the other more problematic fact that Adam had been coming home later and later, leaving before Shiro ever woke.</p><p> </p><p>So maybe that’s what he was doing here. Using fascination to focus his brain so he didn’t freak out about the fact that he was being watched by millions now and he now had twelve men here who all wanted to actually date him. Meaning eye contact and opening up and real conversation which was something Shiro had done in a while.</p><p> </p><p>Blow jobs he could do but those weren’t considered acceptable on the network.</p><p> </p><p>But none of that answered the question, <em>where the fuck was Keith? </em></p><p> </p><p>The final man opened the limo door. Shiro resigned himself, putting on his Golden-Boy smile for the cameras. Obviously, Keith had a brain and had reconsidered. Or Matt had outright lied to him. Or—.</p><p> </p><p>Or Keith was now right in front of him, one leg out of the limo, and HOLY FUCK.</p><p> </p><p>But then, to Shiro’s horror, the limo started moving away, taking Keith with it. Shiro reached out a hand, as if that would do anything, as if he had the power to rewind time so he could sprint forward and yank Keith out of there.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s life wasn’t a sci-fi fantasy, though.</p><p> </p><p>It was, apparently, a tragedy.</p><p> </p><p>For if that wasn’t bad enough, the limo suddenly screeched to a stop and Shiro watched, swearing time moved in slow motion, as Keith lurched forward, hitting something with a crack and spilling out onto the pavement.</p><p> </p><p>Because, of course.</p><p> </p><p>Of course this would happen. Shiro couldn’t have nice things.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Objectively, Shiro knew he was an attractive man. He took pride in his size, watched what he ate, and worked out regularly. All habits he had double-downed on when he returned from overseas as coping mechanisms. He had been blessed with good genes and symmetrical face.</p><p> </p><p>Still though, when he overhead Keith say he was sexy, he straightened puffed out his chest.</p><p> </p><p>Meeting Keith was a revelation. Yes, his eyes were really that shade of violet. Yes, his voice did sound like what Shiro imaged velvet would sound like. Yes, he was really 80% legs with a trim waist that Shiro’s hand could engulf.</p><p> </p><p>The logical side of Shiro—the side that tried to protect him—looked for flaws.</p><p> </p><p>But even that side of him quieted when he felt Keith run steady, unperturbed fingers against his prosthetic.</p><p> </p><p>Unbidden, memories of Adam poured in. Adam had always been weird around his prosthetic. Granted, it was a physical reminder of the time they had spent apart and what it had cost Shiro, proving Adam’s fears right.</p><p> </p><p>He hadn’t wanted to hold his hand. He said the initial coldness of his fingers bothered him. He hadn’t even liked when they were intimate and Shiro slipped up and used the wrong hand. That would effectively put an end to the night.</p><p> </p><p>Keith held none of that uneasiness. He quietly marveled, calloused fingers tracing along a joint, and when he went to pull his hand back, Shiro caught his.<em> Wait, I’m not done. Not yet.</em></p><p> </p><p>The different facets of his personality held a meeting and the decision was unanimous. <em>We want to keep him.</em></p><p> </p><p>And as he let the moment take him, soaring upwards, inevitably it would result in a hard descent.</p><p> </p><p>Because, of course.</p><p> </p><p>“You want to leave the show?”</p><p> </p><p>Of course Keith hadn’t even wanted to go on this show. Who would? And of course he wanted to leave. He had been knocked out in his first seconds on the show.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>No, I just met you. You just got here. I’ve watched every video Katie’s posted of you and it’s still not enough. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wasn’t allowed to want things.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll fix this,” he told Keith because it was least he could do.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro knew he was in a shit mood after. And even if he hadn’t, the cues from Hunk and Romelle to smile would’ve tipped him off. The best he could manage was wooden smiles although none of the other guys seemed put off by it. That only pissed him off more.</p><p> </p><p>When Lotor pulled him aside and there were hands against his hair and lips against his own, he at least knew what to do. He knew this dance. Knew it was all consuming and would eventually quiet all other thoughts.</p><p> </p><p>But the shape of violet eyes wouldn’t leave him.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away. “Sorry, it’s just… Let’s wait, okay? We have time.”</p><p> </p><p>Lotor didn’t seem deterred, instead giving him a sharkish smile.</p><p> </p><p>When they returned to the room and the other men swarmed him, Shiro tried to be in the moment. They were all here to meet him. The least he could do was entertain them. It wasn’t like he had to fall in love, only put on a good show.</p><p> </p><p>Adam had taught him that he was a good actor.</p><p> </p><p>“SHIRO!”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro scanned the room, noticing waving arms and skipping across a pair of violet eyes—.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s entire world narrowed down to one point of focus.</p><p> </p><p>That was Keith on the couch, giving him a small wave. Keith who he had called a cab for and secured a promise from Allura that he would be paid for his trouble. Keith who’s smile kicked up one corner of his mouth in way that made Shiro ache.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t remember crossing the room. He was operating on auto-pilot because there were too many people here and Shiro was hoping but he wanted positive proof his hopes weren’t ill founded.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had been taught that he wasn’t allowed to want things, so why should now be any different?</p><p> </p><p>“Was it Matt?” he asked once they were alone, hiding in a cleaning closet away from the cameras. “Did he...convince you or did Allura force you?”</p><p> </p><p>Because the alternative was he wanted to be here.</p><p> </p><p>Which meant he wanted Shiro.</p><p> </p><p>Granted there were other possibilities that Shiro was perhaps overlooking.</p><p> </p><p>“I mean, I could be like a friend on the inside.”</p><p> </p><p>That being one of those possibilities.</p><p> </p><p><em>Friend.</em> That word was a knife to the chest. Shiro thought the landmine would have been a less cruel death.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t know how it wasn’t fucking obvious to Keith. He was standing before him half-hard and his gaze would not stray from his lips. The only thing more conspicuous would be to get a neon sign and flag twirlers.</p><p> </p><p>Which might be a smart investment now that he thought about it.</p><p> </p><p>If Keith was here “as a friend” at least it meant he was here.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wasn’t allowed to be selfish. He wasn’t allowed to want things.</p><p> </p><p>But he did.</p><p> </p><p>And the fact terrified and thrilled him.</p><p> </p><p>They had been in there much too long when Shiro heard the murmurs of the production crew trying to locate them. If they left they would be spotted. And spilling out of a closet only had one implication.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t want them to edit it however which way they pleased. Selfishly, he wanted the implication very, very clear. “We’ll have to give them something. Here, give me a hickey.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Because that’s exactly what you need, Shirogane, fapping material for later.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Keith made a choking sound. When he seemed incapable of performing, Shiro offered, “Or, if you don’t mind I could give you one?”</p><p>
  <em><br/>
</em>
  <em>We like this plan, Shirogane. But what in the ever flying fuck are you doing? You think knowing what his skin tastes like will help matters?</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Yes, Shiro did think that.</p><p> </p><p>Keith was pliant in his arms, allowing him to tip his head and expose the skin of his throat. Shiro felt his mouth go dry. And when he did tilt forward to suck a section of it between his lips, Shiro put all of his expertise to the task. He wanted a line of the perfect smooth skin marked, wanted a bold, irrefutable claim.</p><p> </p><p>Keith made a stuttered noise that he gritted his teeth against. Shiro didn’t like that. He didn’t want the noises Keith made to be censored. Shiro tried to get him to make it again, licking a long line and ending with a bite but Keith only grunted.</p><p> </p><p>Fine, it would give Shiro something to look forward to.</p><p> </p><p>When Shiro stepped back to assess his work, he was proud of the darkening bruise interrupting the smooth line of Keith’s throat. It would do. Shiro gave him the blossom afterwards, curling his fingers around the stem and grazing Keith’s as he pulled back.</p><p> </p><p>And as he walked away, mood very much improved, that little voice in his head just had to get one last word in.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Great job, Shirogane. He asked to be your friend and you assaulted him in a cleaning closet. Stand up guy.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Shiro slumped against the wall, crashing as fast as he soared, and that was how Hunk and Romelle found him, with his face pressed against the gilded wallpaper, berating himself.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Pidge *accepting her reward*: So you see it was really me all along. I'm the one that brought them together by posting actual content on my Instagram. You're welcome.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>*Crawls out of cave, dumps Shiro chapter, and scuttles back into darkness*</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Let It Consume You</b>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Shiro had been on two bad dates in his lifetime.</p><p> </p><p>This would hereto be known as Disastrous Date #2.</p><p> </p><p>The date had started off well enough with them on the basketball court. Shiro tried to ignore Dick’s exclamations of “Wow, you’re really good!” and “Look at you go!” He could have not meant anything by it. But that condescending tone—so reminiscent of Adam—had been there.</p><p> </p><p>Since had had lost his arm, Adam had been skittish around the subject. Always opening doors for him or opening bags or unscrewing lids. Or answering for him with an “Oh no, he can’t do that.” Logically, he knew that he was just trying to make Shiro’s life easier. But Shiro interpreted it the other way: that Adam thought he was invalid who couldn’t do shit.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re aren’t psychic,” Rosalynn had always reminded him. “You can’t see what people are thinking.”</p><p> </p><p>No, but Shiro could read context clues.</p><p> </p><p>Dick flubbed his plays, easily missing Shiro when he could have blocked him, allowing him to get a basket. Tripping over his own two feet over nothing but air.</p><p> </p><p>By the end of the game, Shiro’s hackles were up and he wanted to throw the ball in his face.</p><p> </p><p>Romelle and Matt must have keyed into his mood for they ended that portion early, skipping to the dinner. Eating and talking, how could they screw this up?</p><p> </p><p>“So, like, does it feel different?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro speared a leaf of lettuce. “Does what feel different?”</p><p> </p><p>“Your hand? When you, you know, jerk off? Which do you prefer?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s fork froze half-way to his mouth. He directed his gaze not at Dick, but in the shadowed alcoves where he knew Matt would be.</p><p> </p><p>While they weren’t recording, he was pretty sure the mics had still picked that up.</p><p> </p><p>Sure enough, either Matt was very interested in smelling his own hands or he had heard them and had buried his head there out of sheer embarrassment.</p><p> </p><p><em>You did this, </em>he made his gaze say.</p><p> </p><p>“I mean, it’s you but it’s not you, you know? Do you ever take it off and use it to, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro heard his fork bend in his grip.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p><em>He was an asshole, </em>Shiro told himself that evening. He felt bad canceling the cocktail party but after storming off from the date, he knew he wasn’t in any place to play civilized.</p><p> </p><p>He was also mad that he hadn’t asked for gym equipment.</p><p> </p><p>Stalking the corners of his house, Shiro was restless. He tossed back another shot but didn’t even feel the burn.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>He was an asshole. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>But Shiro remembered his first days straight out of the hospital, before he had gotten his current prosthetic. When he hadn’t even been able to turn a doorknob, much less play basketball or jerk off. He hadn’t gotten angry at every little thing and his outbursts fulled Adam’s silences. It was a feeding ground of toxic, each one an endless well.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro tried not to go back to those days. He was fully independent now but he also knew that relied on keeping his prosthetic in working order.</p><p> </p><p>What if all the guys in here were like that? Shiro couldn’t grit his teeth and suffer through that; he would combust. What was he even doing here? He knew better. This was why he was a one-and-done kind of guy. Get each other’s names, fuck, and then go home happy.</p><p> </p><p>Why had he even thought—?</p><p> </p><p>A knock sounded on the front of his door.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro drained his glass (he didn’t even remember refilling it) and got to his feet. If that was Matt he was wringing his thin neck—.</p><p> </p><p>A dream stood out on his doorstep.</p><p> </p><p>Well, it was Keith. In a red over-sized hoodie that was one shrug away form slipping off his shoulder and sweats that were one shimmy away from slipping off his hips.</p><p> </p><p>So, a dream.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro yanked him in before he could vanish. “Were you followed?” he asked, realizing where they were. He did not want on a camera crew out on his doorstep. He would lose it.</p><p> </p><p>Keith stuttered over his assurances, twisting the cuff of his hoodie over his hands. Shiro didn’t hear much as the gesture pulled the neckline of his shirt down, exposing one sparsely freckled shoulder. “I can leave if you want—.”</p><p> </p><p>That he did hear. “No! No, Keith. Sorry, I want you here. Today’s just been a day.” He reached out and pulled Keith’s cuff free from his grip, more so for his own sanity. That neckline was dangerous. He felt the thinness of the fabric between his fingers and turned it over to see holes forming. “I’m beginning to think all of your shirts are like this.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, it isn’t date night so I didn’t have to clean up,” Keith stated.</p><p> </p><p>Cleaned up or dressed down, Shiro liked him. Although, unbidden, an image of Keith in one of his hoodies came into his mind, the length of it ending to reveal pales calves and thighs—.</p><p> </p><p>Nope, redirecting his thoughts. These sweatpants were unforgivable. Even half-hard it’d be visible.</p><p> </p><p>When Keith tried to pull his fingers free, Shiro latched down on them, lacing their fingers together. His callouses caught against the joints of Shiro’s metal hand. Again, Shiro looked for some apprehension or discomfort in Keith’s face but he saw none.</p><p> </p><p>His fingers tightened. <em>I’m keeping you.</em></p><p> </p><p>He pulled him into the living room, something in him preening at the thought of Keith in his space. He glanced over his shoulder and briefly caught Keith’s gaze before it flicked away. He tried again but Keith was looking everywhere but Shiro.</p><p> </p><p><em>You’re a burden</em>, whispered a tiny voice that Shiro had thought he had exorcised long ago.</p><p> </p><p>When he pulled Keith onto the couch, he tried to grin through it, laughing and shrugging when Keith asked about the date. But, he obviously wasn’t successful.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro, if it’s bothering you and you want to talk about it, we can.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro looked up sharply. Keith was there, gaze unblinking, steady and present.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I’m definitely keeping you.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Like a floodgate, Shiro found himself talking about it, about his insecurities, about why Dick had rubbed him the wrong way. With each word, the weight on his chest lessened.</p><p> </p><p>And then, when that relief was enough, Keith made him laugh. The ease of it startled him, but it had been genuine.</p><p> </p><p>“They’re all here for you,” Keith told him.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro glanced at him. <em>And you? </em>“All of them?” he asked instead.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, of course.” Which told Shiro nothing. What the fuck did that even mean?</p><p> </p><p>Maybe, it occurred to him, maybe Keith didn’t know Shiro was interested. He had been fairly mild thus far.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, can I use your kitchen?” Keith asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, but what—?”</p><p> </p><p>Keith was already up and moving, sweat pants sagging in a dangerous way. Shiro followed, helpless in his orbit. He watched as he putted about, gathering ingredients. Seeing him in front of a stove brought a smile to Shiro’s face, reminding him of the first time he saw Keith. He wanted to crowd him, close enough for his breath to gust against his neck and feel if his hair felt as soft as it looked.</p><p> </p><p>But he refrained. Because that wasn’t something you did with someone you only just met.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Boundaries, Shiro.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>What were those again?</p><p> </p><p>As Keith heated up hot chocolate—with peanut butter of all things—Shiro was rewarded with kernels of info. Keith called Katie Pidge. Keith’s dad had died young. He had ended up in the foster system. From his tone, it hadn’t been a fun time. Shiro knew the reality. Granted he hadn’t lived it, but he had seen many a young kid spend a night at the shelter, eyes begging for a safe place to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>The thought of Keith like that—.</p><p> </p><p>“Baby—.”</p><p> </p><p>“I am not your baby.” Keith’s hackles rose. He didn’t look up from the steaming pot.</p><p> </p><p>He was right, Shiro admitted. He wasn’t.</p><p> </p><p>Not yet.</p><p> </p><p>“No, but you could be.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro needed to write that one down, He was so proud of himself.</p><p> </p><p>Keith made a sound like he had been run over. He whirled on him and the edge of his sleeve came close to the heated stove top. A blush, hot and abrupt, had staked a place on his cheeks. Shiro wanted to take a picture and frame it. “Y-You can’t—. You can’t just say things like that!”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh come on, that can’t be the worst sappy nickname you’ve been given.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro regretted the words as soon as he said—for their reaction on Keith and his own feelings on the matter. He saw the wall come up in Keith, Shiro on the other side.</p><p> </p><p>And as for Shiro?</p><p> </p><p>Images, unfiltered, poured into his head. Of some douchey looking guy cradling Keith’s wasp-thin waist and crooning “Baby” or “Sweetheart” in his ear as he came undone beneath him.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had never considered murder before. Surprisingly, a lot of options and scenarios came to mind easy.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had never been a jealous person when it came to lovers. Adam was so stand-offish that it had been a victory in and of itself to get him to look his way. And as for his bar hopping, he preferred experienced partners. He wasn’t looking to form an attachment or break anyone’s heart.</p><p> </p><p>But with Keith?</p><p> </p><p>Keith was another story.</p><p> </p><p>He sipped his hot chocolate when Keith offered it because he was a good boy. It was delicious but his mind was stuck on that image. He needed to know. He even offered up his own dreaded name “Sugar-Tits” given to him by Disastrous Date #1.</p><p> </p><p>Dick had not taken that title at least.</p><p> </p><p>He pushed, seemingly wanting to hurt himself with the truth. “Bambi Eyes?” “Cherry Bomb?” “Sweetheart?” Each one made his grip tighten on his mug and he assigned different fantasies for each. He would drive over anyone who had called Keith sweetheart.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro paused as an ugly, horrible thought wormed its way into his head. “Don’t tell me yours was Sugar-Tits too?”</p><p> </p><p>Because he only knew one guy who had used that nickname and if he had come anywhere <em>near </em>Keith, arson would not be good enough—.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh my fucking God, Shiro! No I’ve never had a goddamn pet nickname before!”</p><p> </p><p>The fantasies in Shiro’s head went up on in smoke. A bucket of ice water chucked over him would have had the same effect.</p><p> </p><p>That image of that douchey looking man crooning in Keith’s ear corrected itself to the guy dropping Keith off untouched and going to church to praise God.</p><p> </p><p>It was both a relief and incomprehensible. Shiro could think of a thousand and one things he wanted to call Keith, both in the light of day and under the cover of night with Keith panting beneath him.</p><p> </p><p>Had Keith been hiding under a rock?</p><p> </p><p>And then Shiro realized something. He made Keith confirm it. Him calling Keith ‘baby’ had been his first.</p><p> </p><p>That...did something to him.</p><p> </p><p>Thank God he was sitting down.</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” Shiro declared. He tried not to grin like a dumbass. “Although if I had known I might have chosen something a bit more original. Like kitten or Cherry Bomb. But we’ll stick with baby for now.”</p><p> </p><p>They would have time for the others.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>When Shiro did dream it was very, very vividly.</p><p> </p><p>Not great for the nights he dreamed into being a long stretch of untouched land, the backs of his comrades, and the too-late warning in his comms.</p><p> </p><p>And also not great for nights like this, it turned out.</p><p> </p><p>Keith stretched out on velvet sheets, hair artfully disarrayed. His back arching, his toes curling. Tiny pants in Shiro’s ear, broken moans and half-garbled syllables. A permanent flush was resting high on his nose, mouth opened to suck in air greedily when he could.</p><p> </p><p>There were parts Shiro’s mind couldn’t phantom.</p><p> </p><p>Like would Keith’s hands be raking down his back or fisted in his hair? Or would he be tearing at the sheets? Shiro went through each scenario and couldn’t pick a favorite.</p><p> </p><p>Was Keith’s skin soft all over? Did he have scars? Shiro imagined one in the curve of his knee, something to interrupt his path and nipple on.</p><p> </p><p>How many freckles did Keith have? Shiro counted four along each shoulder, then decided on more because he wanted more to kiss.</p><p> </p><p>Would Keith try to resist him, playing hard to get, or go completely limp and surrender under him? Shiro couldn’t decide which one he preferred so he went with pliant for now as it gave him time to explore.</p><p> </p><p>Keith’s skin marked beautifully, blooming red and purple beneath his lips as he marked a path down the stretch of Keith’s throat. Keith twitched and moaned under every lick.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro committed that gasp to memory. “Baby,” he answered and Keith mewled.</p><p> </p><p>He traced a tongue under one pert nipple and Keith arched like he had been electrocuted. Later, he promised himself, allowing one last kiss before continuing his path down to his prize.</p><p> </p><p>Keith came apart under him. Shiro grabbed his waist, stilling and controlling motions, allowing Keith to feel but only if Shiro gave. And he gave.</p><p> </p><p>“N-No one’s e-ever,” Keith stuttered.</p><p> </p><p>The thought and implication of it was enough to set Shiro off, surging forward with new purpose.</p><p> </p><p>(Logically, in the light of day, he knew this was an impossible and harmful expectation.)</p><p> </p><p>But at that moment, he wanted. He wanted Keith to feel him for days to come. To look at each mark with a fond memory.</p><p> </p><p>He also wanted, surprisingly, for Keith to curl around him afterwards. For fingers to card through his hair and still be there come morning.</p><p> </p><p>When Shiro did wake up, it was to a wet pair of loungers.</p><p> </p><p>He also felt like he should call Keith to apologize as he was pretty sure wet dreams were not first-date territory. He got as far as actually searching for his phone before remembering it had been confiscated.</p><p> </p><p>He flung an arm over his eyes, then forced it away and kept his eyes wide open as the almost photo-realistic picture of Keith smiling up at him from sweat-soaked sheets filtered through in the darkness of his eyelids.</p><p> </p><p>But not before Shiro had noted the line of perfectly placed marks all down his neck.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I’m in trouble.</em>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Matt, sitting Shiro down: I'm like 98% sure wet dreams are beyond your control. No Shiro, you do not have to marry him. Shiro, why are you crying at that?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Scene starts like one of the drug commercials, you know the ones. Feeling down? Feeling depressed? Well, talk to your doctor about reading dumbassery involving Shiro and Keith and a Bachelor-verse. 99.99999% effective.</p><p>Here's Shiro being a dork for another chapter.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Let It Consume You</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Friend (n): a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.</p><p> </p><p>Exclusive of sexual relations.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had used Matt’s phone to check the definition and that part of it stuck in his head.</p><p> </p><p>“I could be a friend,” Keith had said.</p><p> </p><p>And then Shiro had had a wet dream about him. Like a dirty old pervert lacking any kind of control.</p><p> </p><p>What made it worse was that he had never been harder in his life. He had stayed in the shower for an extra hour, lingering under the spray until the water had gone cold and then longer, hoping the iciness of it would do what jerking off twice could not. He was still half-hard when he pulled on his pants later for his date with Curtis.</p><p> </p><p>He threw himself into the date, trying to drown out the and stifle the fire that was just beneath his skin. For that reason, he probably returned Curtis’s kiss with a little too much enthusiasm.</p><p> </p><p>But even then, he was still soft in his jeans. Still picturing violet eyes and smile that kicked up to the right, as if trying to suppress itself.</p><p> </p><p>What the fuck even was this? Shiro didn’t get hung up on guys like this, didn’t fantasize about the ratio of their hips to the width of his hand.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe he should see a doctor.</p><p> </p><p>Thankfully (or regrettably) his next few nights were reserved for other men. Shiro drifted through the dates in a haze. Laughed with Lance, drank with Kinkade, held hands with Mason.</p><p> </p><p>He also existed on three hours of sleep a night, too afraid of closing his eyes any longer for fear of seeing something worse.</p><p> </p><p>Like long legs wrapping around his waist, a mewling body beneath him, arching into every touch. Long hair spread out across his gray sheets. Muscles and heat clenching tight around him, so perfect. Violet eyes almost dark blue in the low light (why was there light? Shiro didn’t fuck with the lights on).</p><p> </p><p>Shiro should really see a doctor.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t know how things had gone so wrong so fast.</p><p> </p><p>One second, they were playing flag football, Shiro aching as he watched Keith zip around like he was the Energizer Bunny. When he sidled across from Shiro, he wasn’t even panting, hair pretty in its disheveled state.</p><p> </p><p>“I have good stamina.”</p><p> </p><p>Jesus fucking Christ. Shiro did not need to know that.</p><p> </p><p>The first hint that something was about to go wrong was Griffin taking off in the exact opposite direction he was supposed to go. If Shiro knew what was about to happen, he would have taken off after him, to prevent what was going to happen.</p><p> </p><p>But Shiro didn’t so he was on the other side of the field when Griffin slammed into Keith.</p><p> </p><p>He was already running when Keith tipped over the side of the hill and went out of view. He increased the pace when he heard a shout of what sounded like pain and then eerie silence.</p><p> </p><p>He could hear his heart pounding in his ears when he crested over the hill and see a tangle of limps lying prone on the ground. He didn’t remember covering the distance, but Keith was in his arms in the next second, letting out a blessed groan that meant he wasn’t dead.</p><p> </p><p>He categorized each injury, still only hearing the blood rushing in his ears. Keith’s pants were ripped at the knee, one knee skinned and bleeding lightly. His face and front were covered with dirt and grass stains. His jersey had ripped at the shoulder, exposing a window of thankfully unmarked flesh. A bruise was forming on his lower jaw.</p><p> </p><p>He tried to regulate his breathing. The others were coming down the hill, voices clashing into one another. Keith was in his arms and he was moving, lightly cursing, so that meant he was alright—.</p><p> </p><p>Keith made a face and spat something out into his own hand.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro saw the white gleam of a surprisingly bloodless tooth.</p><p> </p><p>His hands tightened on Keith’s shoulders without thought. Keith had lost a fucking tooth over this bullshit. Over some jealous, petty, sore loser of an <em>asshole—</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“Guys, it’s an implant.”</p><p> </p><p>A bit of his rage died. Fucking still though.</p><p> </p><p>“DON’T THINK THIS LETS YOU OFF, GRIFFIN.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wholeheartedly agreed.</p><p> </p><p>Keith was studying his own tooth with a nonchalance that Shiro didn’t think was warranted. “I think I can reattach it.”</p><p> </p><p>Because, yes, when someone knocked out your own tooth you just reattached it. Simple and easy.</p><p> </p><p>He wasn’t fully aware why he hefted Keith into his arms then. It was his tooth that was broken, not his leg. But, he argued, Keith had never gotten hurt when he was cradled in his arms and that seemed like a good protective measure at this point.</p><p>Plus, he would never not marvel of Keith’s weight in his arms, his lithe body pressed against his chest, compact but still portable.</p><p> </p><p>Fucking hell. Shiro really needed to get a hold of himself.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro considered himself to be a level-headed, easy going guy. He wasn’t aggressive; he wasn’t confrontational.</p><p> </p><p>Heck, even when he opened their bedroom door and found Adam’s secretary dick deep in his fiancé, he had only politely closed the door on them and left.</p><p> </p><p>But something about seeing Keith, wincing at his stiff muscles and trying without much success to reattach his own freaking tooth, set something off in Shiro he thought was dormant.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t like he could go throttle Griffin though. Strangulation was considered rude.</p><p> </p><p>Plus, he needed to take care of Keith. Although, Keith had waved him off when he tried to approach to bandage his knee, claiming he was fine.</p><p> </p><p>Which he was not pouting about.</p><p> </p><p>He tried to listen as Keith talked, pushing the fantasies about roasting Griffin over an open fire to the back of his mind. His hands clenched around empty air though, frustrated.</p><p> </p><p>When Keith went to stand and flinched, Shiro surged forward, all focus on Keith. He persisted when Keith attempted to wave him off. “You’re clearly not! Keith, what hurts?”</p><p> </p><p>“My back,” Keith said, in a small, defeated voice.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wanted to reassure him. Wanted to take care of him. Wanted to wipe every bruise and cut from his skin and take every ache from his bones.</p><p> </p><p>“Hang on, baby. I’m going to lift your shirt, okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“I thought I told you not to call me that.”</p><p> </p><p>“That isn’t what you said.” Shiro should know. He had committed every one of Keith’s words to memory—and not just so he could replay the husky tone when he closed his eyes at night.</p><p> </p><p>Because that wasn’t something a friend would do.</p><p> </p><p>When Shiro lifted Keith’s shirt and saw the giant bruise covering Keith’s back, something snapped in him. He wanted to <em>kill </em>Griffin.</p><p> </p><p>Murder would get him thrown in jail though. And Keith wasn’t in jail. He was out here.</p><p> </p><p>There were probably other better reason not to want to end up in jail. Shiro couldn’t think of them right now.</p><p> </p><p>“I heal fast. Shiro. Don’t worry about it.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith said it like it was nothing. Like he hadn’t just been deliberately assaulted and this was a known risk of flag football.</p><p> </p><p>“That isn’t the point! Wait here,” Shiro told him, needing to do something. He went out of the room for ice, thoughts churning and vicious, burning need in his gut.</p><p> </p><p>Keith said it like he was used to it. Used to what? Being hurt?</p><p> </p><p>Griffin had went after Keith like he had a vendetta.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro realized Keith spent the majority of his time away from him. Anything could have happened. He had watched seasons of Altea’s Finest, He knew what sometimes happened in the manor, outside of the lead’s view. Especially to those who were the front runners.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t think he had come on that strong. But he remembered the first night. Even in a room filled with twelve other men, his world had narrowed down to Keith. He had been doing the same thing during the group date, he realized. He couldn’t remember what any of the others guys had been doing, because he had been looking at Keith the entire time.</p><p> </p><p>When he returned with the painkillers and ice, he was relieved when Keith let him take care of him. He watched him take the aspirin and then used his metal hand to hold the ice to Keith’s bruised back, batting Keith’s hands away when he tried to take over. The cold bite of ice didn’t bother Shiro’s prosthetic hand the way it would Keith’s.</p><p> </p><p>“Is Griffin… Has Griffin been hostile to you?”</p><p> </p><p>If Keith said yes, Shiro vowed then and there to take him out of the house. He could stay with him for the rest of the season. In his house, where Shiro could make sure he was safe. Shiro was selfless like that.</p><p> </p><p>“No, not really.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t lie to me, Keith.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not lying. I mean a lot of the guys don’t like me—.”</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean by that?” Shiro had caused this. Had made him a target and then hadn’t taken any measures to keep him safe.</p><p> </p><p>He felt like the worst sort of person.</p><p> </p><p>Keith hadn’t even done anything to deserve this. He had been beautiful and alluring but that wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t encouraged Shiro’s advances, hadn’t even given the slightest indication he found their interactions pleasant outside of he was polite and indulged Shiro. Which, Shiro thought, Keith probably did with everyone.</p><p> </p><p>Keith wanted to be his friend and he had let his own fantasies, his own wants, and his own damn dick take over. He should have controlled himself. Should have tried harder on the other dates. Shouldn’t have panted after Keith like a dog in heat.</p><p> </p><p>They argued over it, Keith deflecting and Shiro persisting, needing to know how bad he had fucked up, how he had hurt Keith. Had it only been bullying? Had they put their hands on Keith? He liked to think the producers wouldn’t allow such things, but he didn’t know, didn’t trust them.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t trust anyone with Keith.</p><p> </p><p>He realized he could start making things right by sending Griffin packing.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro, don’t send him home. He didn’t mean it, I’m sure. And you can’t… You can’t send people home just because they don’t like me.”</p><p> </p><p>Because of course. Of fucking course Keith would defend him. Because Keith was good, unlike Shiro.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro flexed his jaw, working to find the words that would make this all right and what he settled on was “Keith. It’s not just about you. I don’t want my husband to be someone who takes his feelings out on other people.”</p><p> </p><p>In Shiro’s head it sounded right. Nice and mature. So unlike his actual feelings of wanting to strip Keith bare to make sure that those were the only marks on him, that there weren’t echoes of other violence on skin.</p><p> </p><p>Keith’s expression however, told him he had fucked up again. He didn’t know exactly how though.</p><p> </p><p>When Romelle stuck her head in to tell them she had a car ready, Shiro tired to come with. He could fix this. He could make things right—.</p><p> </p><p>“No need to ruin your night,” Keith told him with a plastic looking smile. “Go, have fun.”</p><p> </p><p>But Shiro’s night had already been ruined and the person who could make it better recoiled from his outstretched hand, out the door and gone before Shiro could utter another word.</p><p> </p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was in a foul mood for the cocktail party.</p><p> </p><p>His glass creaked ominously from his tight grip. He had had two glasses of champagne without even tasting it. Though the night was cool enough and the open gazebo they were all clustered around was gorgeous, Shiro couldn’t enjoy any of it.</p><p> </p><p>Had Keith gotten his tooth fixed? How was his back? He needed to ice it. And he should avoid laying on his back. Had anyone told him? Muscle relaxers would also help as Shiro knew the lower back could twist itself into knots when aggravated.</p><p> </p><p>Despite Keith’s protests, Griffin was gone. Upon returning to the other men, Shiro hadn’t been able to quell that urge. He had taken one look at Griffin’s stupid face and snarled, “You need to leave. Now. I don’t care where you go but you are not welcome here anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>And Griffin had hightailed it out of there. Shiro had talked to one of staff and made sure his intent was clear. That had been his dismissal of Griffin from the show. No, he was not going to do a retake with more tears and so they could get the right angle. If he saw his face again, he might give into his urge to punch it.</p><p> </p><p>None of the producers had tried to talk him out of it. It would have been nice to know he wielded this kind of power before.</p><p> </p><p>On some level, Shiro did feel bad. There were five other men here, all perfectly pleasant.</p><p> </p><p>But Shiro could only focus on the absence of one.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had wanted and these were consequences.</p><p> </p><p>From across the floor, Curtis spotted him, started towards, and must have thought better of it when he caught Shiro’s expression because he did a pivot towards the drink table.</p><p> </p><p>“Eek man, who jizzed in your cereal?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro tuned to see Lance walking up to him, cosmo in hand.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry about Keith, my dude. He’s made of tougher stuff; he’ll be fine,” Lance went on.</p><p> </p><p>If there was anyone who was here for the fame, Lance was close to the top of the list. Always mugging for the camera, his personality ramped up to a 120%. Despite this, Shiro found Lance amiable. He was a good laugh and even if he wasn’t a serious prospect Shiro didn’t mind spending time with him.</p><p> </p><p>“His back was bruised,” Shiro mumbled into his drink.</p><p> </p><p>“He’ll bounce back,” Lance assured him. “Trust me, he’ll be back before you know it and you two can go back to mooning over each other while a sweeping love score plays in the background.”</p><p> </p><p>“Has he…” Shiro started, then stopped. Lance was Keith’s roommate and the two seemed to be on good terms. Plus, if anyone knew what went down in the house and was willing to talk about, it was probably Lance.</p><p> </p><p>“Have the guys been giving him a hard time?”</p><p> </p><p>Lance shrugged. “Eh, he’s not exactly the most sociable person around so that doesn’t help. Griffin, though, that was next level animosity. He had it out for Keith from night one.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s stomach dropped to somewhere around his toes. So his assumptions had been right. He had all but tossed Keith into a den of sharks.</p><p> </p><p>“But Keith also looks like he could kick anyone’s ass with just his pinkie, so that does help,” Lance went on. He sat down his drink on the ivy-covered railing Shiro was leaning against. “You know… I think we could help each other out. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Comprende?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t trust Lance’s toothy smile. “No…?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s an agreement as old as time. I’ll keep an eye on your boy in the manor and report back to you. In exchange, you keep me around long enough for me to be in the running for the lead on the next season.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wanted to correct Lance in calling Keith ‘his boy.’ But he also liked the descriptions far too much.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro mulled the idea over. While he didn’t like the idea that there were things going on in the house that needed reporting on, he couldn’t say he didn’t find it comforting all the same. If someone was hurting Keith, he would know. He could address it. Even if Keith didn’t want him, the least he could do was keep him safe.</p><p> </p><p>Lance leaned against him, offering out a hand. “What do ya say? Partner?”</p><p> </p><p>While Keith had a firm spot for his final pick, Shiro realized he did need other choices to keep the season going. (Though at this point he was considering pulling the plug on the whole thing. But that also meant no more Keith so that stayed his hand.) Why couldn’t one of these other men be Lance? There was no threat and it was a win-win situation.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro grasped his hand. “Partners.”</p><p> </p><p>Lance pumped his hand in an enthusiastic shake. “I’ll be your man on the inside, Shiro. Also, real talks, you guys are adorable together. #Jealous. I was someone looked at me the way Keith looks at you.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s ears perked up. “He looks at me?”</p><p> </p><p>Lance took a long sip of his drink and tipped his head back to look at the lights strewn across the ceiling rafters. “You two idiots were made for each other, I swear. To be fair, I guess you haven’t realized because who doesn’t look at you like you’re a Ken doll come to life? But Keith doesn’t look at me the way he looks at you. May God strike me down if I’m lying.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro felt the first kindle of tenuous hope spark in his chest.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe he hadn’t been projecting. Maybe he hadn’t been letting his dreams and fantasies take him away. That still didn’t explain the almost careful distance Keith had placed between them but maybe that had been due to the shit he was getting in the manor. Or maybe Shiro wasn’t being clear enough. This was an odd situation with him technically dating several other men, his time portioned out between all of them.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe Shiro wanted and this time it was okay.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro gave Lance the blossom the producers had given him. Lance responded with a conspiratorial wink.</p><p> </p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>“Oh my god, Mother Hen Shiro, stand down, he’s fine.” Matt rubbed a tired hand over his eyes and glared at Shiro over the rim of his coffee mug. Shiro had tracked him down after the conclusion of the party, finding him hunched over an editing desk in on of the trailers.</p><p> </p><p>“But did anyone check on him? And did Romelle give him the muscle relaxers and the ice pack and the –.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, Shiro. Keith got your care package. He’s fine. His tooth his fine. His back is fine. And he’s drifting off to a drug induced sleep. You are lucky you were an only child. Any younger siblings you had would have been suffocated.” Matt gave him a considering look. “You really have it bad, don’t you Sugar Bear?”</p><p> </p><p>“I just want to make sure he’s alright. It’s my fault he got hurt. I—.”</p><p> </p><p>Matt groaned. “Martyr Shiro, wait your turn. We’re dealing with Smitten and Dazzled-by-long-hair-and-pretty-eyes Shiro right now.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro let himself fall into the seat across from Matt, not arguing. “Why didn’t you ever introduce us?” he asked aloud. “Before all this?”</p><p> </p><p>Matt shrugged. “I didn’t think he’d be your type. He’s nothing like Adam.”</p><p> </p><p>No, Keith was most certainly not anything like Adam.</p><p> </p><p>“Plus Katie was weirdly possessive of him so I thought, better leave well enough alone. If I I had done I’d get this level of dumbassery, though? Shoot, to think. I could’ve had years of staring doe-eyed at my ceiling at just the thought of that five-eleven gremlin.”</p><p> </p><p>“How long have he and Katie been roommates?” Shiro was like a dragon when it came to facts about Keith, hoarding them like treasure.</p><p> </p><p>“Since her sophomore year of college. They knew each other since high school though. Met in detention. He was in for talking back to a teacher and my dear sister was in for drawing dicks on the math teacher’s erase board.”</p><p> </p><p>“Chip off the old block, eh?”</p><p> </p><p>“She used permanent marker, Shiro. I couldn’t be prouder.” Matt shuffled around a set of papers until he found a bright yellow posit-it note. He took the note and stuck to his own forehead so he wouldn’t lose it. “I have to say it is weird seeing you like this.”</p><p> </p><p>“Like what?”</p><p> </p><p>“Happy? Excited? Pick your adjective.” Matt set his mug down, voice growing serious. “Ever since Douche-Of-The-Year…”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro shifted, uncomfortable with how much the ghost of Adam seemed to linger over everything he did. When he had grabbed his things to move out, the very night after walking in on Adam, they hadn’t had a discussions. Hadn’t hashed things out. Shiro hadn’t wanted to.</p><p> </p><p>Adam had been a top of his class, Ivy-bound dreamboat who seemed above it all and had the perceived libido of plank of wood. When Shiro had gotten him on a second date and then also to come back home and find out just what made the honor student curl his toes, Shiro had taken it as a sign he must've been doing something right. For Adam to love and want him, because Adam didn't love or want just anything. When things had started to sour, he had internalized it as a hit to his self esteem. At first because he was sick and dying and then because he was cured but scarred and broken.</p><p> </p><p>He knew from talking it out with Rosalynn that running hadn’t been the best choice of action. He should have talked it out, gotten the closure he needed right then and there. Maybe then he wouldn’t look at every upcoming relationship with an ‘oh, great, how am I going to get hurt this time?’</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t think that when he was around Keith, though. He was too distracted. By how long his legs were. The huskiness of his laugh. How his flush lingered around his neck.</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” Matt said, “Anyway. Glad to see you’re enjoying yourself, Sugar Bear. Oh, and you can send me a fruit basket as thanks any time.”</p><p> </p><p>“I thought I sent one already. Must’ve gotten lost in the mail. It’s too bad; it was an epic fruit basket. Came with it’s own mariachi band and everything.”</p><p> </p><p>“Har, har. Fine. You at least owe me a drink. Especially in two weeks.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t know whether or not he should be alarmed by the way Matt’s eyebrows were arching. “What’s in two weeks?”</p><p> </p><p>Matt twisted around in his chair. “Oh, nothing special. Just a one-on-one.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro sat up straighter. “With Keith?”</p><p> </p><p>Matt reached for his spray bottle that he used for his plants and gave Shiro a good spray. “Yes, with Keith. Down boy. Also, your request for the Boulder Fields to be featured was approved. Now wipe that smirk off your face, Sugar Bear. You owe a big ol’ margarita when this is all said and done. Now get out of here. We're making you take your shirt off and do some workout shots for promos bright and early. Who knew that many folks out there were thirsty for you?"</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Pidge: Huh, my side's kinda hurting. Oh well, I don't think it's anything serious that could cause my brother to overreact and tear my best friend away from his future husband. No, Kosmo I'm not giving you anymore treats.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I needed more Shiro so sue me. This one's fairly short but we gotta a big storm coming next chapter.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Let It Consume You</b>
</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean he’s gone?!”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s world was tilting, thrown off balance and out of alignment all while he had been taking a quick nap between shoots. How could your entire world seemingly be ending and you were unconscious during it?</p><p> </p><p>He had woken to a frantic pounding on his door. He had stumbled, barefoot and shirtless, over to it only to find Lance, winded and not making much sense.</p><p> </p><p>“K-Keith… Thought you should know. Whew, give me a second. I had to sprint to make it past the cameras and I am not a sprinter. Keith, and Matt, and his roommate. He’s gone.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro knew what gone meant. He never wanted to hear it in relation to Keith. Ever.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean he’s gone?!” Shiro repeated. He was already reaching for his shoes, tugging them on and not bothering with the laces.</p><p> </p><p>“Matt came in. Something happened with his roommate.”</p><p> </p><p>“With Katie?!”</p><p> </p><p>“If that’s his roommate, then sure.”</p><p> </p><p>“What happened to her?!”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know!”</p><p> </p><p>“When did they leave?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, an hour ago?”</p><p> </p><p>“You waited an <em>hour </em>to tell me?!”</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t think they were leaving the set!”</p><p> </p><p>“They left the set?! Where? Where did they go?!”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know!”</p><p> </p><p>“What do you know then?!”</p><p> </p><p>“That you’re going to need a shirt before you run off and poke someone’s eye out with your freaking pecs.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro groaned and wasted precious seconds running back to grab a shirt.</p><p> </p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>Shiro kicked in the door to Hunk’s trailer. Hunk screamed from behind his desk, nearly dropping his camera.</p><p> </p><p>Logically, Shiro knew that kicking in someone’s door was not polite. But after fruitless grilling of various staff members, Shiro was beyond desperate at this point and knocking seemed to take too much time.</p><p> </p><p>“Keith. Where.”</p><p> </p><p>Also, articles and verbs took way too much time.</p><p> </p><p>Hunk blinked at him, clutching his camera to his chest. “What?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro slammed his hands down on Hunk’s desk. He probably looked half-deranged. “Keith. Do you know where Keith and Matt went?”</p><p> </p><p>Hunk narrowed his brows in understanding. “Yeah, Matt got a call about his sister. Supposedly she’s in the hospital. They went to check on her.”</p><p> </p><p>“But <em>where</em>?”</p><p> </p><p>Hunk gave him the name of a hospital in Colorado. Shiro finally felt like he could breath. He had a location. Keith wasn’t lost to some nebulous void.</p><p> </p><p>What Shiro did not have though was anyway to get there or even a goddamn phone.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I use your phone?” he blurted out.</p><p> </p><p>Hunk pushed it towards him with a nervous hand, like he might bite. Shiro snatched it up. He searched for the hospital, searched for the city, and searched available flights. One was leaving in thirty minutes. That was more than enough time.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” Shiro said, handing the phone back and hightailing it out of there with purpose, a half baked idea forming.</p><p> </p><p>Hunk must’ve seen what Shiro had been searching for he called to him, “Wait, Shiro! Wait—!”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro shut the door on his protests.</p><p> </p><p>He was the lead of the show. It wasn’t like they could fire him.</p><p> </p><p>Right?</p><p> </p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>It occurred to Shiro only when he was on the plane and they were some thousands of feet in the air that maybe this hadn’t been the best of plans.</p><p> </p><p>It hadn’t been a plan at all really. Shiro had just been reacting.</p><p> </p><p>He felt antsy at the thought of Keith miles away, having slipped away without him even noticing. Him, alone in a hospital room, back still tender and not helped by those plastic chairs. He would be tearing at his cuticles or twisting the cuffs of his sleeves if his shirt was long enough.</p><p> </p><p>What even had happened to Katie? Shiro didn’t want to give his brain the free rein to imagine.</p><p> </p><p>And, then, a more crushing, horrific thought took hold.</p><p> </p><p>What if Keith didn’t want to come back? Shiro knew from past seasons that contestants left seasons before for personal reasons—a death or sickness back home. If Katie had been seriously injured…</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t want to continue the season if Keith wasn’t there. Maybe that was being dramatic. But it was how he felt. The other guys were fine but none of them captivated them in the way Keith did.</p><p> </p><p>“You have a tendency to become fixated,” Rosalynn had said at one of their sessions.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had rubbed the back of his neck, knowing that juggling three projects, two jobs, and looking into getting his Master’s wasn’t a normal workload for anyone. Much less for someone who couldn’t get more than four hours of sleep at night. Breaking up with Adam had given him the kick he needed to get out of bed but it had also driven him close to a frenzy. He didn’t have anyone to cook for anymore, anyone to wake up next to, anyone to orbit.</p><p> </p><p>“It isn’t a bad thing,” Rosalynn had amended. “You only need to find something where the fixation is validated. You need something where your efforts are rewarded. Think of it as a painting. Painting with white, no matter how long you paint for, will only give you a white canvas. It doesn’t matter how much time or energy you expend; that canvas will always be white. You need to find activities or even people when you’re ready that reward you for the time and energy you put into them. So that way, you’ll get a colorful canvas.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro thought of Keith setting a mug of hot chocolate across from him. He thought of that smile that kicked up on one side. He thought of the laugh that tumbled from his chest when he was around Keith, quick and genuine. He thought of that first night and Keith’s hand barely grazing his, touch unsure but not unafraid as it ran along one of his prosthetic’s ridges.</p><p> </p><p>He thought of the feeling in his chest at this moments, like he could paint with a full set of colors.</p><p> </p><p>He gripped his armrest and willed the plane to fly faster.</p><p> </p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>“So,” Matt said in a low voice so as not to wake Keith and Katie. “You heard Keith was gone and your immediate response was to jump on a plane and go after him? You thought that was a good idea?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro tore his gaze away from marveling at a sleeping Keith to glare at Matt. “Shut up. I know.”</p><p> </p><p>Matt’s grin was annoying. “Just want to establish the thought process here.”</p><p> </p><p>On the bed, Katie snorted. Her head was pillowed on Keith’s chest and had stubbornly stayed there. Keith had drifted off at some point, head titled back in a way that had Shiro wincing. The long line of his throat was bared. Katie scrunched her nose and made a kicking motion, tearing the blanket from Keith’s shoulder but not waking him.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro got up and tugged the blanket back up over Keith, careful not to touch in case he woke but wanting to all the same.</p><p> </p><p>Matt made a gagging sound. Shiro turned to glare at him but, thankfully, Keith and Katie slept on.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro hadn’t been sure his presence would be welcome. The same furor that had drove him into action also almost plagued him into hoping back on the next flight and returning.</p><p> </p><p>He had just wanted to check on Keith, he told himself. He had just wanted to make sure he was alright, then he would leave. He would give Keith the damn sunflower he had gotten from the gift shop on a whim and then he would go and he would call Rosalynn to talk about what dumbass thing he had done.</p><p> </p><p>But seeing Keith walk out into the waiting room, eyes bloodshot and watery, had struck a chord in Shiro. He wasn’t sure he could leave, even if Keith asked him to.</p><p> </p><p>He hadn’t asked him to, though. He had asked him to stay, mumbling it like it was a confession.</p><p> </p><p>And then as if that hadn’t been a gift in an of itself, Keith wanted to date him. He had gotten firm and clear confirmation. Shiro felt like he could fly to the moon.</p><p> </p><p>Matt picked at the remains of his cold takeout. He kicked up a leg to stretch it out on the couch, brows narrowed in what was a surprisingly serious expression for Matt. “I should warn you,” Matt said, casting a cautious look to the sleeping duo. “Keith’s not...easy to get to know.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want easy, Matt.” He just wanted Keith.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I mean, he doesn’t date a lot. Or if he does, he keeps it hush-hush. He’s never brought anyone over to dinner. Not that… Not that we’re like his family and he has to, but… He’s a loner and he’s always functioned fine alone.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro quelled the sudden panic as the image of Keith seated at a dinner table besides a shadowy-shapeless figure of douchery flitted through his mind. Of a hand on resting comfortably on his thigh.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Stop it. Get a hold of yourself. Matt said that hadn’ t happened.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had already keyed into the fact that Keith didn’t have a lot of dating experience, at least as far as anything serious went (and that did not thrill him, it did not). When Shiro grabbed his hand there was sudden jerk, not one of uneasiness, just of surprise. When Shiro flirted, the blush lingered on the bridge of Keith’s nose. He had trouble maintaining eye contact and every time they met, it always took a moment for Keith to settle, to relearn that Shiro was no threat.</p><p> </p><p>And, surprisingly, none of those things deterred Shiro. He would happily put up with it if it meant he had the chance to hear Keith’s rusty laugh or that biting sarcasm slip into his tone when he was well and truly comfortable.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t care about that,” Shiro assured him.</p><p> </p><p>“And there’s…. There’s history with Keith. It’s not my place to talk about it. He’ll tell you when he’s ready. He’s got some walls up and there’s a lot of doubt there—both in others and in himself.” Matt let out a sigh. “All that to say, it might take him a while. But don’t give up on him, alright? As Keith’s closest male relative/friend, I have to give you the standard ‘if you hurt him I will cut off your balls and play ping pong will them’ speech, m’kay?’</p><p> </p><p>Shiro would sooner walk through fire than hurt Keith. “Matt, you don’t have to worry about that. I know he’s special.”</p><p> </p><p>Matt studied him. He stabbed his chopsticks back into his cold noodles and gave a simple, “Okay.”</p><p> </p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t remember falling asleep. It wasn’t his intention. His goal starting out the night had been to stare at Keith all the while. Partially because he just liked looking at Keith uninterrupted and partially to see if Keith stopped breathing in the night.</p><p> </p><p>Keith slept like the dead. He didn’t move at all. Didn’t make any noise. His eyelids didn’t even twitch. If it weren’t for the faint rising of his chest and visible pulse in his neck, Shiro would’ve called for a nurse.</p><p> </p><p>But he must have nodded for he woke to near darkness and slight pressure on his foot. The room was nearly pitch black, only given some relief by the cracked door and the hallway lights. A shape stumbled away from him, knocking into something hard and cursing.</p><p> </p><p>“Keith?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sh-Shiro?” Keith lowered his voice as he hissed his next question. “I thought you were Matt. Sorry about your foot. Wh-What are you still doing here?” He collided again with something and bit down on another curse, mindful of Katie and Matt sleeping somewhere near by.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro reached out, his eyes adjusting to find Keith’s arm and tug him towards him. Keith’s weight and uncertainty in the darkness worked against him and he collapsed into Shiro’s lap. Shiro wrapped an arm around him when he tried to get up, stopping the motion. “Easy. What’d you hit, your knee?” Shiro followed the line of Keith’s body to find his knee, prodding at the skin.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, grazed it. You didn’t answer my question. What are you still doing here? I thought you’d get a hotel room or be on a plane by now.”</p><p> </p><p>The simple answer was that Keith was here and Shiro wasn’t leaving without him. He had an opportunity, a wondrous, glorious opportunity that he would fight tooth and nail to keep.</p><p> </p><p>But that might be a bit much for one in the morning.</p><p> </p><p>“My flight’s not till this morning. And someone had to keep an eye on Matt, make sure he didn’t draw dicks on your faces.”</p><p> </p><p>“You fell asleep on the job,” Keith pointed out.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m awake now.” Shiro tightened his hold on Keith’s waist when he felt Keith squirm. If Keith kept moving they were going to have a very hard problem here in a few seconds. Of course if Keith stood that would alleviate the problem but Shiro wasn’t ready to consider that option. “Where are you going?”</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro—. I-I’m heavy,” he said in a whisper.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro snorted. “You are not. Now stay.”</p><p> </p><p>To his relief, Keith did settle back against him. The position put Shiro’s ear right near Keith’s chest. If he focused, he could hear his heart beat.</p><p> </p><p>“You should’ve gotten a hotel,” Keith murmured, sounding like he could fall back asleep at any second.</p><p> </p><p>“Like I said, I was on guard duty.”</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t need to protect me.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was distracted by his hands on Keith’s waist (his thumbs could nearly touch in the center of his torso) so it took him a second to follow the conversation. “I want to, Keith.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith huffed something. “This can’t be a comfortable place to sleep.” And then to Shiro’s horror, his legs flexed like he was about to stand. “I can ask the nurse if they have a cot or—.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro clamped his hands on Keith’s hips, keeping him in place. “I’m fine.”</p><p> </p><p>“But—.”</p><p> </p><p>“Trust me when I say things, baby. I’m fine. I slept in worst places overseas.”</p><p> </p><p>In the darkness, it’s almost too easy to picture it. The scratchy tent floors. The abandoned homes they had hunkered down in. Propped against a wall that had seen bombs not days ago.</p><p> </p><p>Keith’s weight across his thighs grounded him. He wasn’t there. He listened for the heartbeat, so close to his ear.</p><p> </p><p>“If you ever… I mean, not that you would, and not with me. I have no idea what that life must have been like, but if you ever need someone to just listen…”</p><p> </p><p><em>I’m keeping you.</em> “Thanks,” he rasped, tilting his head to place a kiss on Keith’s neck. He resisted the longing to taste that stretch of skin again. One of the worst/best things he had ever done was acquire the knowledge of what Keith’s skin tasted like.</p><p> </p><p>Keith leaned back against him. His breathing was slowing, warmth and the darkness lulling him. Sleep apparently made his boy pliant and less cautious.</p><p> </p><p>His boy. <em>His.</em></p><p> </p><p>He liked the sound of that. He would have to thank Lance for putting the descriptor in his head.</p><p> </p><p><em>Not yet</em>, he remained himself. Not his yet, by maybe. Soon.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro knew he wouldn’t get much sleep, not with the hard plastic digging into his spine and Keith’s heartbeat thudding in his ears. Shiro didn’t get much sleep anyway so that was fine with him.</p><p> </p><p>He drifted instead.</p><p> </p><p>But when he did wake, the warm weight settled trustingly against him and that familiar thud steadied him far quicker than any breathing exercise ever did.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Mob outside my house: CHAPTER TEN! CHAPTER TEN! WE WANT THE STRIP CLUB DATE.</p><p>Me: Patience--. *brick crashes through my window* We just have Adam bullshit and then--.</p><p>Mob *rushes my house*</p><p>I do promise you all it's coming. I've got you, don't worry.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Whelp, time for some hurt. But before that more fluff and Shiro panting after Keith for like 3,000 words. </p><p>Also I ran out of characters to be Shiro's therapist as all I have left is Coran and Slav and I can't put Shiro through that for comedy. Even I'm not that cruel. So meet Rosalynn.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Let It Consume You</b>
</p><p> </p><p>“His name’s Keith,” he admitted to Rosalynn on their bi-weekly call. He had been skating around the issue, knowing he couldn’t play it cool with nonchalance wherever Keith was concerned.</p><p> </p><p>Rosalynn, in her infinite wisdom, made a “Hmm.”</p><p> </p><p>When Shiro had first met Rosalynn, he hadn’t known what to think. She was a small, ancient looking woman with blonde roots and flamingo pink ends. She had tiny green eyes that were made to look gigantic behind a pair of coke-rimmed glasses. The only decorations in her office besides her diplomas was the framed mugshot of herself fifty years younger on her desk. (No, Shiro hadn’t learned the story. When he had asked, she had sniffed, gave a wicked smile, but said nothing.)</p><p> </p><p>“Have you been watching the show?” he asked maybe just because he wanted her agreement that Keith was the most beautiful thing in the world.</p><p> </p><p>Rosalynn made a sound that could mean ‘of course’ and could mean ‘no I don’t watch that trash.’</p><p> </p><p>He waited for clarification but Rosalynn was a master when it came to patience.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s a mechanic,” he told her. “He has a dog. He’s funny and knows how to cook. He’s young,” he admitted in a smaller voice.</p><p> </p><p>“How young?” Rosalynn questioned.</p><p> </p><p>“Twenty-seven.”</p><p> </p><p>Rosalynn gave a put upon sigh. “Shiro, that’s young <em>for me</em>. Would you quit sprinting towards your old age?’</p><p> </p><p>Shiro agreed but he also had looked in the mirror yesterday and found more gray hairs in his black so there was that.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t know what he was asking Rosalynn for. Half of him wanted her to chide him, warn him off, tell him his infatuations were nothing more then pent up feelings and an over-compensation for the first guy that kept his interest for longer than a night. That he needed to work on himself and let Keith go.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t know if he would listen if she did say that though.</p><p> </p><p>“So,” Rosalynn said with a click of her tongue. “You’ve met someone. You’re interested. He’s interested. What seems to be the issue?”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I’ve had my first wet dream since I was a teenager and I am way to interested in how he would sound coming apart under me. And I am so freaking scared of screwing this whole thing up because I think this could be really good for me. Also, if I don’t get to kiss him soon I may cry or combust.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>But there were things Rosalynn didn’t need to know.</p><p> </p><p>“You know.” Shiro gave a shrug of his shoulders then realized she couldn’t see him. “It’s… It’s been a while.”</p><p> </p><p>“Since Adam,” Rosalynn finished for him.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro knew from various reviews of past partners that he was good in bed. He had no doubt (okay, maybe he had a few) on that aspect of a relationship.</p><p> </p><p>But relationships weren’t only about what happened under the sheets.</p><p> </p><p>And if Adam was to be believed Shiro was a shit communicator.</p><p> </p><p>He thought of how he had gotten some of the best sleep he had in a while in that damn hospital chair. Because every time he woke up, there was a warm and trusting body draped across his lap and there sure as hell hadn’t been anyone like Keith overseas. The images and nightmares that usually staked a claim hadn’t been able to take hold.</p><p> </p><p>“I have my first date with him,” Shiro admitted. He had felt like throwing up and drifting the moon all morning. It was an odd combo.</p><p> </p><p>Rosalynn hummed. “Exciting.”</p><p> </p><p>“We’re going to Boulder Fields.” Oh God, he hadn’t even checked with Keith that he didn’t have some horse phobia.</p><p> </p><p>“That sounds fun.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro let the silence continue on for far too long.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro,” Rosalynn said with one of her sighs. “You’re allowed to want things. You’re allowed to be excited about the possibility of a relationship. You’re allowed to feel those things. You don't have to have it all figured out in a day. You know that right?”</p><p> </p><p>Logically, Shiro did know that. But he also knew that his only real relationship had ended with his husband-to-be finding comfort in another man’s arms.</p><p> </p><p>“Take it one step at a time,” Rosalynn told him. “Talk to him. Use this date to get to know him. And enjoy those feelings.”</p><p> </p><p>Shire let out a large breath. “Okay.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro could do this. He had passed Quantum Physics and survived a freaking landmine. He could go on a date with Keith and not fuck it up.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro could not do this.</p><p> </p><p>His should have heeded his instincts and put his foot down about the yoga. He was stiff as a board on the best of days. But, at the time, because he was getting his Boulder Fields date, he consented. Ideally, it should have been a semi-awkward session that Shiro could laugh off later.</p><p> </p><p>Matt should have fucking warned him Keith was as flexible as a pretzel.</p><p> </p><p>As Keith folded his legs over his head, the tips of his toes touching on the floor, back bending in an elegant C, Shiro felt something pop in his head.</p><p> </p><p>He could have gone his entire life without knowing Keith was flexible. He could have lived a long and happy life.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, he was wheezing through the movements, eyes glued and unable to look away from the bend of Keith’s spine, trying to hide the fact that he was half-hard.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” Kayla trilled with a clap, “Time for plank. Shiro get on top of Keith.”</p><p> </p><p>The world was out to get Shiro. It had conjured Keith and this entire scenario for this exact reason. Keith would vanish from his arms afterwards and he would be left with blue balls for the rest of his life because no one's hips bent as easily as Keith's seemed to or looked as good doing it. </p><p> </p><p>Shiro placed both of his hands on either side of Keith. His brain shorted out at the image of Keith beneath him, hair falling from his hasty ponytail, a fine later of sweat dampening his shirt.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Dear fucking God.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was going to have dreams tonight.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t even tell if you know what you’re doing or are just that oblivious,” Shiro whispered.</p><p> </p><p>Keith had to know what he was doing. He just had to. No way Keith had gone twenty-seven years without knowing he was a wet dream come to life.</p><p> </p><p>But Keith just made a humming noise, biting a corner of his lip. Shiro wanted to reach out and tear his lip free from his own teeth but he was a man and he had control damnit.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro watched as Keith’s eyes went his biceps and he was never so thankful for his decision not to wear a shirt. Shiro flexed his abs.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Two can play at this game.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Now really connect with your partner, look into their eyes and search their soul for that kernel of delicious popcorn,” Kayla prattled on, “that is their heart.”</p><p> </p><p>“Focus, Shiro,” Keith whispered with faux seriousness. “You’re supposed to be looking for my heart kernel popcorn.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro tightened his biceps and stamped down on the laugh that bubbled in his chest. Keith did not get to do this. He did not get to be funny and sexy within the same breath.</p><p> </p><p>But Keith went on, commenting on Kayla’s instructions under his breath.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro lost the battle and fell onto Keith laughing. And, he also got to feel the hard line of muscle that was Keith’s entire body so...he didn’t look at it as a loss.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Keith didn’t mind his hand and that would never cease to astound Shiro.</p><p> </p><p>He remembered Adam yelping when he touched him, surprised and not expecting the coldness of metal where flesh had been.</p><p> </p><p>But Keith held his hand like it was nothing, allowing Shiro to lace their fingers together. Shiro studied his face, looking for some sign, some twitch of discomfort or unease, but he found nothing.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro loved Keith’s hands. There were callouses and cracked nail beds that he was carefully mapping out. There was a puckered scar on his palm, not visible with sight but distinguishable by touch. He always seemed unsure at first whenever Shiro touched him but quickly settled.</p><p> </p><p>While a flushed and stuttering Keith was a thing to behold, Shiro liked a relaxed Keith the best. He was accepting of his touch, allowing Shiro to indulge and Shiro didn’t think he could ever get enough.</p><p> </p><p>Then again, Shiro had only mapped out his hands. There was an entire body left.</p><p> </p><p>A very flexible body at that.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was aware of the cameraman following them though and he thought that hauling Keith into the undergrowth might be frowned upon plus a bit disrespectful.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro told him of the second part of their date as they walked. Before Shiro could properly warn him, the neighing of horses gave him away.</p><p> </p><p>Keith tore his hand free and ran up to the fence. Shiro made a note to buy an entire ranch of horses if it kept that look of wonder on Keith’s face.</p><p> </p><p>(He was also so relieved Keith didn’t have a phobia of horses. He didn’t have a Plan B.)</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro should not have let Keith have his own horse.</p><p> </p><p>If he had been indulging in his fantasies, Shiro would’ve put Keith on Ebony right in front of him for the whole ride. Granted, Keith would have been able to feel certain things no doubt, but the phantom image of Keith right there, nestled and cradled by his body was a damn good one.</p><p> </p><p><em>Next time,</em> he promised himself.</p><p> </p><p>Keith looked good on a horse. Then again, Keith probably looked good next to a dumpster. His grin was easy and it was clear he knew what he was doing. Cherry seemed content beneath him, although her head pulled forward against the reins at their slow place.</p><p> </p><p>While they rode, Shiro bite the bullet and gave Keith his whole sad tale. And he braced himself. Because he knew he had built Keith up, piling on expectations dreams that weren’t realistic. Surely, this would be where the cracks would start to show. Most people when he told them his story had opinions: Why had he gone overseas? How he had not known it was a false positive? Didn't he get a second opinion? Why had he seemingly lost his mind and put himself through all that?</p><p> </p><p>Shiro told himself that he was fine with it. Keith was a person and he would take it: the good and the bad. And, so far, the good seemed to far outweigh the bad.</p><p> </p><p>But Keith, once again, surprised him. He didn’t prod at every action or express his viewpoint at every decision Shiro had made.</p><p> </p><p>He just listened.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro should have really thought to put Keith on Ebony in front of him, damn it. Kissing on a horse probably wasn’t safe, but really who cared?</p><p> </p><p>And then because Shiro didn’t have enough wet dream fodder for the night, he got the picture of Keith tossing a grin at him over his shoulder as he nudged Cherry into a gallop. “Race you back to the barn?”</p><p> </p><p>The wind tore his laugh from him as he chased after Keith.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had kissed many people in his lifetime.</p><p> </p><p>It was as act. Lips against each other, exchanging breath and moans, the prelude to something as hands wandered and skin ignited.</p><p> </p><p>All of those partners had not prepared him for kissing Keith.</p><p> </p><p>At first Keith was stiff and unsure, but Shiro equated this to how he always tensed when Shiro grabbed his hand. He knew it wouldn’t last, that it was an involuntary reaction. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I’ve got you. I promise I’ll make it good. I promise.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro parted long enough to urge him, “Keith, relax.”</p><p> </p><p>And he did.</p><p> </p><p>He went pliant and trusting in Shiro’s hands, allowing Shiro to set the rhythm. There was something euphoric about Keith going limp in his arms. Shiro forced himself to keep it slow, to not push Keith back against the barn door and take and take and take. Keith jerked at the hint of teeth against his bottom lip but Shiro kept it light, teasing. He gave a small moan as Shiro raked nails against the nape of his neck.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was ruined for all kisses to come.</p><p> </p><p>It took Rusty butting his head between them to break the kiss. Shiro would’ve happily continued at the slow, building pace all evening.</p><p> </p><p>He wondered how Keith would react to his lips other places. If he would always tense at first before yielding or if he would eventually know Shiro’s touch and submit before Shiro even begun. He didn’t know which thought he preferred: having to always lull Keith and remind him that Shiro would take care of him or having that knowledge be ingrained.</p><p> </p><p>The cameraman was getting out of the car, quelling any further action Shiro wanted to take. Keith’s red lips and blissed out eyes wasn’t something he wanted broadcast across thousands of screens. He liked the idea of being one of the very few that knew what Keith looked like after being kissed.</p><p> </p><p>They would have time for everything else.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro knew he was only half-listening to Lotor. His mother and grandmother would have been horrified at his manners, but really who could blame him when the image of Keith, windswept hair and laughing with hay somehow stuck to his collar, kept flashing through his mind.</p><p> </p><p>Lotor had tried to coax him back into activities they had done previously but Shiro put a stop to that. It seemed laughable, the idea of having someone else’s lips and hands when he knew what Keith’s felt like.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t think that he could ever go back.</p><p> </p><p>“So then my governess, Dayak,” Lotor continued on with his story, “she ratted me out to my father and—.”</p><p> </p><p>“Takashi.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro felt his life take swerve from romance into horror. Only one person, still alive, called him Takashi.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro couldn’t hear anything outside of the ringing in his ears as he turned his head in the voice’s direction.</p><p> </p><p>And, there was Adam, standing there in the glittery parlor, wearing the damn suit he had bought for their wedding. Like a ghost conjured forth.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Shiro snarled, getting to his feet.</p><p> </p><p>“Takashi,” Adam insisted in that unruffled tone of his.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Takashi, you need to apply yourself. Takashi, not everything in life will be handed to you, you have to work for it. Takashi, do you think we are happy with your behavior, that we’re proud?</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had told him on many different occasions how much he despised his birth name. No matter how sweetly he said it, it always summoned the image of his father, looming over, forever disappointed.</p><p> </p><p>Adam had defended his continued use of the name by saying he was helping Shiro reclaim it, banishing the ghost. Shiro hadn’t seen it that way.</p><p> </p><p>And now he was here.</p><p> </p><p>Adam reached out a hand as Shiro stalked past him, trying to get him to stop. Shiro jerked away. The expression on his face felt foreign but it must have been venomous to get Adam to rethink his actions.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro left the room to find, someone, anyone, that could fix this.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>“What the ever flying FUCK, Matt?!”</p><p> </p><p>“I know, I know, okay?! Or, I didn’t know!” In his trailer, Matt silenced his headset and shut the door behind Shiro. “I didn’t know they were planning this, I swear. You know I would have put a stop to it or let you know if I had, right?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t even know what to believe anymore. Apparently, Adam had called up production, out of the blue after watching the first few episodes of the season, told them his story and production had decided, yep, let’s add him to the mix.</p><p> </p><p>The only thing that kept Shiro from storming off the set and refusing to return was the fact that Keith was still in that house. He didn’t know what would happen to Keith if he left and he wasn’t going to risk it.</p><p> </p><p>Matt ran a hand through his hair. “Those fuckers!”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want him here,” Shiro insisted.</p><p> </p><p>“Me neither!”</p><p> </p><p>“I want him gone first thing.”</p><p> </p><p>“Agreed! You know, I know some people. They’re discreet; they could make a disappearance happen.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want him dead, Matt. I just don’t want him <em>here</em>.” Shiro didn’t know how it had gone all wrong so fast. Just this morning he had been on Cloud Nine with Keith—.</p><p> </p><p>Keith who was still in the house.</p><p> </p><p>With Adam.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro reached back for the door and ripped it open. Matt shoved it closed again before he could get a foot out. Shiro tried to shove him aside, panic clawing up his chest. “K-Keith, he’s still—!”</p><p> </p><p>“Keith is a big boy; he can take care of himself. Shiro, you need to calm down, okay? You need to calm down and we need to calmly tell production you aren’t interested in this twist they cooked up. If you come in hot like this, it’s like putting blood in shark infested waters. They’re going to want the drama.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro heaved in a breath, trying to control the panic and adrenaline coursing through his system. He knew Matt was right. Keith was in a house filled with cameras and Lance was looking out for him. He would be fine, but that didn’t erase the fact that he wasn’t standing right before Shiro cementing that belief.</p><p> </p><p>“Breathe in, breathe out,” Matt intoned in what he bragged was his zen-voice. “We’ll fix this, I promise. He’ll be gone before sun-up.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” Allura said in that unflappable way of hers, “that’s my final offer. We won’t send him away without one date.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro clenched his fists. He wanted to scream.</p><p> </p><p>Matt threw his hands into the air. “Shiro doesn’t want him here—!”</p><p> </p><p>“Then Shiro can tell that to him on their one and only date. He’s signed off on the forms and presented a strong case for being here. Plus his entrance is already on film—.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then edit it out!” Matt interrupted.</p><p> </p><p>“—and the previews have already aired. The public knows he’s here. We started a story-line and we need to end it. Look,” Allura leaned back in her chair. “I’m not unreasonable.”</p><p> </p><p>“This is the definition of unreasonable!” Matt added.</p><p> </p><p>“What would you say,” Allura said, only addressing Shiro, “to another one-on-one with Keith afterwards? We can even feature the soup kitchen you wanted.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro hated this. He hated that they were using Keith as a bargaining chip for good behavior, dangling time with him right in front of his nose like he had to be earned. He hated that Adam was here somewhere and Keith was still in that damn house and here they were talking about him like he was a fucking narrative they could twist and turn however they pleased. He felt like he was overseas again, being given orders and told not to question, not to argue.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro left the office before he did or said something he could regret.</p><p> </p><p>Matt followed him out. “Shiro, Shiro, I’ll fix this I promise.”</p><p> </p><p>“Tell them I’m canceling the rest of the night,” Shiro told him.. Shiro knew it wasn’t Matt’s fault but right now he wanted anyone associated with this damn show to take a long walk off a short pier. “I don’t… I can’t talk to anyone right now, okay? I need… Just give me some time.”</p><p> </p><p>He stalked back to his house, fists clenched and muscles tight from the tension thrumming through his body. He felt a modicum of relief when he had the door shut and locked behind him. He entertained the idea of going back for Keith, of yanking him from that house and shutting them both up here, but he knew they probably had keys to this place and the last thing he wanted was to run into Adam again.</p><p> </p><p>Lance was still here. Lance would keep Keith safe, he had promised.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro knew though that promises were not always kept.</p><p> </p><p>“I promise I’ll be here when you get back,” Adam had said.</p><p> </p><p>“I promise I still love you.”</p><p> </p><p>“I promise I won’t contact you again.”</p><p> </p><p>He slid to the ground, back still pressed against his front door. His mind was abuzz and he couldn’t follow any thought to completion.</p><p> </p><p>And it was the only time he regretted coming here.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Oh-o-spaghettios. I'll keep the Adam drama contained to the next chapter I promise.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Enjoy another chapter because I can't sleep and want this Adam drama behind us. Also we get into why Shiro is just a tad possessive.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Let It Consume You</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro dreaded his dreams that night. But when he did slip into sleep, he came to against a warm body and familiar dark hair.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Thank God.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Keith mewled under him as he rolled his hips. The sheets were rucked around him, a brilliant violet against his pale skin. Shiro tipped his head down to inhale against Keith’s shoulder. He let his lips taste a bit of that unmarred skin.</p><p> </p><p>“You know you can’t stay here, right?” Keith asked him, not sounding debased enough.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro angled his hips, searching for that spot that would reduce Keith to whimpering. Thighs clenched around his waist.</p><p> </p><p>“Let me have this, please,” he whispered against Keith’s shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“You already have this,” Keith told him and Shiro didn’t want to be believe that this could be a reality. He wasn’t used to slow love making. His typical speed was fast fucking, chasing his own release but still mindful of his partner.</p><p> </p><p>With Keith though, he wanted to take his time. He wanted to memorize everything. The way Keith’s nose scrunched up, biting on his own lip. The sweet clench of muscles and prolonging of the completion. The slow blooming of a hickey on his neck that Shiro nursed at until he was happy with it.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t want it to end.</p><p> </p><p>“Takashi.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s hips stuttered. He kept his eyes peeled wide, focusing on Keith who was beneath him. Keith’s whose skin was sprawled out like a meal.</p><p> </p><p>“Takashi.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro buried his head in Keith’s shoulder. He smelt faintly of motor oil. Shiro kept his eyes closed, cock still buried deep in Keith. He focused on that, gripped the vividness like it was reality.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro?” Fingers carded through his hair.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want to think about him. Not here, with you.” He feared the darkness might distort the scene around him but Keith’s body stayed, the curve of his shoulder distinctly Keith’s.</p><p> </p><p>“Then don’t.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro forced his mind, trying to control the dream, but it slipped through his fingers, The scene repainted itself and, with a cry from Shiro, Keith disappeared beneath him.</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t get to do this!”</p><p> </p><p>His and Adam’s kitchen came into view. Shiro felt like screaming. He was trapped in a cage. It was years ago, he had never left, never found anything else. Look, there was Adam’s stupid cat-shaped tea pot on the stove.</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t get to ignore me for months and then get mad at the result!”</p><p> </p><p>The dream took on the ghost of a memory. He had a bag slung over his shoulder and a hand on the doorknob. He willed himself out but he stayed there because that’s what he had done all those years ago.</p><p> </p><p>Adam came into view, sans glasses, shirtless and hair mussed. The flush was high in his cheeks. He had missed the button on his pants, zipper holding on by a prayer.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro felt sick.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry, okay?” Adam fumed, looking near tears. “I’m sorry you found out that way. But… you haven’t touched me in weeks!”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro remembered. His nightmares had been bad then. He had exiled himself to the couch. He had meant for it to only be a day or two, but it turned into nearly a month. He couldn’t even get hard when he used his own hand. He hadn’t wanted to disappoint Adam, hadn’t wanted to explain that it wasn’t because he wasn’t attracted to him, his veins had just frozen over. For weeks their interactions were Adam leaving a cup of coffee out for Shiro and Shiro pressing a kiss to his forehead before he left in the morning.</p><p> </p><p>He should’ve talked to Adam, told him this.</p><p> </p><p>But he hadn’t.</p><p> </p><p>Adam also hadn’t asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Takashi—.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t call me that.” The doorknob groaned in his grip.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s your name!” Adam seemed saddened, like he himself had bestowed the name onto Shiro. “Can we just… Can we just talk?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want to talk.” And Shiro didn’t because if he stayed he would go back into that room—<em>their bedroom—</em>and probably strangle that son of a bitch. It was still his ring on Adam’s finger.</p><p> </p><p>A ring he was currently not wearing.</p><p> </p><p>“Where are you even going?”</p><p> </p><p>“Matt’s,” Shiro offered it as concession. He also knew Matt wouldn’t allow Adam across the threshold unless Shiro told him to.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, okay, go if you need to go, then go. But we need to talk. Promise me we’ll talk.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to relive this. The emotions bubbling in his chest were ugly and foreign. Once was enough.</p><p> </p><p>Where the hell was Keith?</p><p> </p><p>The scene dripped and churned as he opened the door, Adam crying after him, wanting a promise he he couldn’t give.</p><p> </p><p>When the next image came into view though, Shiro vowed he would endure a hundred memories of Adam if he never had to glimpse this again.</p><p> </p><p>Keith was sprawled out on those violet sheets, crying in that soft way of his as a shadowy shape took him apart piece by piece. There were marks on his neck that were not Shiro’s. There were bruises on his hipbones that were not in the shape of Shiro’s fingerprints. There were scratches there that Shiro would never leave.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wanted to vomit.</p><p> </p><p>Keith opened his eyes, blissed out and seeming drugged. “Shiro?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro came to crouched above Keith, arms shaking and chest heaving. The marks on Keith’s neck changed and he remembered leaving them. The bruises along Keith’s hips matched his fingers. His skin was unmarked save for the ones that Shiro had put there.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro heaved a breath and gathered Keith to him. If he held him tight enough, he couldn’t possibly vanish.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro?” Keith questioned again. Hands racked against his back, trying to get an answer out of him, but he stayed buried against Keith, arms tightening until there was no space between.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro jerked awake without a familiar body in his arms, fear heavy in his chest and cold sweat clinging to this skin.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t fall back asleep.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>“How do you think they made cotton candy? Like who came up with that idea? Like who sat down and was like, you know what would be awesome? Air and sugar?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro let Lance’s prattle wash over as they traipsed across the broadwalk. While the brightly colored stands and noises of the crowd should have been all consuming, Shiro barely registered them. Phantoms clung to him, a result of poor sleep and vivid nightmares.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro would’ve called off the date if it had been anyone but Lance (and Keith obviously). But Lance was harmless and had a big enough personality that the producers never asked Shiro for anything other than stand there and look pretty. So he want, dark bags under his eyes and feeling like a zombie as Lance pulled him from stand to stand, seeming content to fill the space with his chatter and mug for the cameras.</p><p> </p><p>It gave Shiro some much needed time to think.</p><p> </p><p>He knew Allura wouldn’t budge, no matter how much Matt tried. He would have to face Adam if he wanted him gone. He didn’t want to prolong the event but he didn’t want to drag it out either.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe if he didn’t do anything a meteor would come, strike the Earth, and end it all.</p><p> </p><p>He could hope.</p><p> </p><p>There was also on other possibility. Shiro had reviewed his contract that morning. He could leave, give Allura and the other producers the middle finger, and high tail it out of there. They couldn’t force him; he would just have to forfeit the money he had earned and a pay a small but doable fee. He could leave this whole batshit idea behind.</p><p> </p><p>But one thing kept him from pulling the trigger.</p><p> </p><p>If he left, that meant he would be leaving Keith as well.</p><p> </p><p>He knew that, through Matt, he could find Keith again. He wouldn’t be searching the world for a needle in a haystack. But they also hadn’t talked about after the show or even what they were doing or how this all would work. Shiro had his life here in California with his veteran outreach programs and it would be selfish of him to ask Keith to give up whatever life he had in Colorado for him.</p><p> </p><p>They had known each other what, three weeks? Here, they were in a bubble. They didn’t have to worry about life or responsibilities. Outside…</p><p> </p><p>What if Keith didn’t want him?</p><p> </p><p>Did Keith even think they were dating? He hadn’t expressly stated that Keith haunted his every waking through and dream. He thought it was obvious. But he was coming to realize Keith was dense and if that was his worst trait Shiro would count himself lucky.</p><p> </p><p>Here, he at least had time to make these facts abundantly clear.</p><p> </p><p>The unknown factors paralyzed him. He didn’t want to shoot himself in the foot, ruining one relationship just to escape another. He needed to sort some things out, get Keith to promise he wouldn’t disappear off into the sunset like the dream he so obviously was the second they were out of here.</p><p> </p><p>“...and I have to say, man, on the down low, Adam coming back? Low move by production. There should be a rule. No exes allowed. That snake even tried to warn off Keith and I—Holy fuck, man!”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro hadn’t even registered that his arm had shot out, gripping the back of Lance’s hoodie. He heard his neck crack as he turned to look at Lance. He didn’t recognize his own voice as it came out of his chest. “What. Did. He. Say. To. Keith.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>As soon as Shiro was able to, he chucked his mic. Yes, producers had warned him to be cooperative on this date, citing his bad mood on his date with Lance as a no-no. Shiro had responded with his best Golden Boy smile, the one he had used on his father before whispering “Eat shit” under his breath. He had never said he would cooperate.</p><p> </p><p>He just needed to find Keith.</p><p> </p><p>Hoping he would have some luck and come across his boy before any of the others, he stuck to the denser foliage off the path, sticking close enough to peer out but not be seen.</p><p> </p><p>God, having punished him enough with Tantric Yoga and the flexibility of Keith’s hips, bestowed upon him a gift.</p><p> </p><p>He spotted Keith on path a couple of minutes in. His jacket had a rip along the collar. His hair was loose and tangled near the ends. He prodded at a pile of leaves with the toe of his boot like he expected something to pop out at him.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro approached him from behind, not knowing where exactly the cameras were. He didn’t realize he was masking his footfalls until a misstep produced a loud crack. “Keith—.”</p><p> </p><p>Hands wrapped around the arm he had on Keith’s shoulder and he was airborne. He hit the ground on his back, staring straight up with the wind knocked out of him.</p><p> </p><p>His boy appeared over him, face frantic and apologetic. “Shiro?! Oh my God, I am so sorry. Are you hurt? I’m sorry. How many fingers am I holding up? Oh God. I’ll get someone—.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro grabbed Keith’s ankle before he could escape.</p><p> </p><p>From having carried Keith, Shiro knew that Keith’s lithe frame hid a solid core of muscle. He had seen the corded muscle of his bicep and even the definition of abs from that goddamn audition video that he tried not to think about because if he did he would expire.</p><p> </p><p>But Keith had flipped him, like it was nothing.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro hadn’t known he had a strength kink.</p><p> </p><p>Discoveries were made every day apparently.</p><p> </p><p>“Right, but, you use the weight in your hips to distribute—.” Keith was explaining and at the words ‘hips’ Shiro lost his mind to the gutter. The better parts of his dream came back with a vengeance, being edited in real time. Keith yanking him to him with his heels digging into his lower back, a cry that was so sweet and precious echoing in his ears.</p><p> </p><p>He would have to write Keith an apology letter one day because surely fantasizing this much about a person you weren’t married to wasn’t legal.</p><p> </p><p>He would have to marry Keith. Logically that was the only option.</p><p> </p><p>Right, but there were steps before that.</p><p> </p><p>Starting with what the fuck had Adam told Keith.</p><p> </p><p>Rolling to his feet and grabbing Keith in the same movement, Shiro backed them both up under the dense coverage of a pine tree, hoping a camera hadn’t been mounted right above their head. He found Keith’s mic and chucked it away with savage joy.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re going to talk about that later, but right now, what did Adam say to you?”</p><p> </p><p>“What?”</p><p> </p><p>One day things would go easy for Shiro. One day.</p><p> </p><p>“Adam. What. Did. He. Say. To. You.” Shiro’s mind conjured up the worst stories, fabricated lies Adam could spin that had a hint of truth. He needed to know. He needed to do damage control know because he was not letting Adam ruin this. He was not. When Keith deflected, gaze growing cagey, Shiro persisted, “Don’t lie to me, Keith. What did he say to you?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not that big of deal. He just said to stay away from you.”</p><p> </p><p>“And?” Shiro refused to believe it was that innocuous. Not with Adam.</p><p> </p><p>“And nothing else.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re sure?”</p><p> </p><p>“He calls you Takashi?” Shiro wanted to toss Adam into the sun for putting that hurt, wounded look on Keith’s face.</p><p> </p><p>“I <em>hated </em>when he did that.” Clenching his hands into fists, he gave Keith the story. About how the name triggered memories of his father and how Adam never listened because of course he knew better. He asked again when he was done, “You’re sure that’s all he said to you?” Shiro knew how this worked. You sowed the seeds of doubt and, before you knew, it you had weeds. Well Shiro was going to make sure to come in with a goddamn weed whacker.</p><p> </p><p>He wasn’t losing this. He was not.</p><p> </p><p>Keith nodded. Shiro didn’t believe the nod but he didn’t want to scare his boy, didn’t want to press if Keith wasn’t willing to give. Some part of him rationalized it was better he didn’t know.</p><p> </p><p>He let his head slid forward to rest in the curve of Keith’s shoulder. It felt just like it had in his dream, Keith faintly smelling of wintergreen instead of the motor oil. He felt Keith pluck leaves from his hair and wanted to gather him up and run off with him.</p><p> </p><p>And then because his boy was so perfect, he asked, “Shiro, are you okay?’</p><p> </p><p>Because of course Keith would. Of course Keith would prioritize Shiro’s well-being over this disaster.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I’m keeping you.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“No. No, I’m not okay. My ex-fiancé is now back in the picture being an asshole and the producers won’t let me send him packing without a full-on date first. And then I find out he’s been warning off the guy I’m crazy about and I was terrified that he had ruined things for me. That is the exact opposite of okay, Keith.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh. That, uh, must be hard on you?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro pressed his snorted laughter into the curve of Keith’s neck. He tasted salt with his lips and couldn’t help but go in for a bigger taste. Keith tilted his head to the side, baring more of his throat, so sweet and trusting that Shiro wanted to cry.</p><p> </p><p>“You get a prize, baby.” And unwarranted images of Keith tossing him onto his bed and having his way with him flooded into his mind. <em>No, no, not yet. I had a plan. This meeting had a purpose and it was not that. </em>But Shiro felt Keith’s pulse pick up and lost his train of thought. He let himself indulge, nosing along the cord of Keith’s neck, up to the shell of his ear. Keith’s baby hairs stirred from Shiro’s breath. “My place? Tonight?”</p><p> </p><p>And the purpose of this meeting was not to ravage Keith. It was not. He wanted to explain to Keith why Adam was here and his plan and see where Keith’s head was at.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I’m crazy about you and I want to continue this on well after the cameras stop. Please, tell me you feel the same.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>But if ravaging happened afterwards...oh well.</p><p> </p><p>He wouldn’t let Keith squirm away until he had a promise, even when he heard what sounded like a dying bird off in the distance.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro felt like his life was being poured into a blender and someone had hit puree. He was going from moments that didn’t seem real, that seemed almost gift-wrapped, to ones of absolute horror out of his nightmares.</p><p> </p><p>Once second, he had been kissing Keith, his boy writhing beneath him. And while Shiro had started things too hot and heavy, he had managed to recover, had managed to get the conversation back on its intended path. He was right in the middle of his big speech, the one he had practiced in front of his mirror, when a knock on the door and a dreaded “Takashi?” had made his throat close up.</p><p> </p><p>And then he had gotten the brief view of Keith in his bedroom right before being assaulted with the reality of Adam before him.</p><p> </p><p>From one high, to a new low. Shiro wanted off this ride.</p><p> </p><p>“It won’t do anything but help you,” Adam was saying, offering up his infinite wisdom. “Then you won’t have to be on this show mooning over some kid—.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s teeth clicked together as he snarled, “<em>Don’t you fucking dare</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Adam didn’t get to do this. He didn’t get to crawl out of the wreckage of his past with a lit torch and set ablaze his future.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s a kid,” Adam insisted.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s none of your fucking business and if you continue with this—.” Shiro wasn’t a violent person. He felt bad killing spiders. But he remembered Keith’s wounded face asking him why Adam called him Takashi and he saw red.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m trying to understand,” Adam said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “I am. But this isn’t…”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you understand that I don’t want your opinion?”</p><p> </p><p>“You never said,” Adam said with a sigh.</p><p> </p><p>“And that hasn’t changed. I don’t need you to come in and save me, Adam. I don’t want you to. Do you understand that?”</p><p> </p><p>Adam’s brows furrowed, like the idea was completely foreign and ridiculous.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want you here,” Shiro pressed.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m only trying to help so you can avoid—.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro gripped at his hair. It was like talking to a brick wall. He was stuck in the past, reliving all of their other arguments and Adam talking over him. “Are you even listening to me, Adam? Quit thinking about your own goddamn reasons and what you’re going to say next and listen to what I’m saying now. I don’t want your <em>help</em>. Now repeat it back to me.”</p><p> </p><p>Adam’s lips flattened into a thin line. Shiro remembered with a pang how much Adam had liked when Shiro kissed the corner of his lips, a suggestion of a kiss. “Don’t be condescending.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s the only language you seem to know!”</p><p> </p><p>“I am here as a friend—.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want you as a friend, Adam. I can’t trust you!”</p><p> </p><p>That seemed to finally get through to him. His lips stopped shaping his next words. He blinked behind his glasses.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t trust you, not as a lover, not as a friend. So I don’t want you here. Do you get that?” He took a breath when Adam only continued to stare at him. “Look, I’m not saying I was perfect, I know I fucked up. I should have talked with, shouldn’t have pulled away, etc. But you…”</p><p> </p><p>God, that memory wouldn’t leave him. He had come home early with a migraine. He knew Adam was off so he had stopped at their favorite pizza shop, gotten a plain cheese even though it made him weep at the blandness. He had walked through their door and heard noises. Noises he was very familiar with but couldn’t reconcile because Adam wouldn’t. It wasn’t possible.</p><p> </p><p>Following those sounds to the bedroom. Cracking open the door and seeing the bare ass of that secretary that he had meet at the office party. Hearing Adam moan in a way that made his stomach churn. Those familiar eyes finding his and pleasure going to shock.</p><p> </p><p>“There are things I can’t forgive,” Shiro told him. “And maybe that makes me a lesser person but… I can’t, Adam. I don’t want to rebuild things. I don’t want to look past anything. I just want you gone because it hurts when you’re here. I don’t want to be who I am when I’m with you anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>It had taken Shiro years and a whole TV show but Adam finally seemed speechless.</p><p> </p><p>Adam who had grown up on a pedestal and never had to want for anything or anyone, wasn’t wanted by him. It was a mind-blowing concept.</p><p> </p><p>He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He took a step back and blinked at his surroundings. “I-I-I’ve said I’m sorry. I can’t… I wrote to you and—. I know it was wrong and all I’ve ever… I know forgiveness isn’t...”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t care, Adam.”</p><p> </p><p>As Rosalynn had suggested, he didn’t want to spend anymore time pouring energy into things that just lead to the same blank canvas.</p><p> </p><p>Adam left and the house seemed to shrink as well as grow cavernous. Ghosts tried to take hold of him. He crossed to his bar and poured himself a glass of whiskey and then another because he didn’t remember emptying the first one.</p><p> </p><p>He sat on his couch, put his head into his hands, and tried to breathe.</p><p> </p><p>Time grew slippery then but he came back into his body when Keith put a mug of something chocolaty in front of him and threw atop it rainbow sprinkles like it was a magic trick. He grabbed for Keith’s hand when he looked as if he was about to leave because he was not allowing this, he was not allowing the past to consume his future.</p><p> </p><p>They were having this talk damn it.</p><p> </p><p>He wondered, in a disconnected way as he pulled Keith into his lap, if years down the line he would ever look at Keith the way he did Adam, with a sour feeling in his belly tainting all of the good memories. He didn’t know the future, didn’t know what would happen a day from now, much less a year. He and Keith could become completely different people.</p><p> </p><p>He remembered the more nightmarish parts of his dreams. Of hands on skin he had yet to even see and sounds he hadn’t caused and couldn’t control.</p><p> </p><p>His hold tightened on Keith.</p><p> </p><p>He hated that Adam had put these thoughts here, that he even had this power.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro talked to Keith about Adam and told him of his plan, pressing his ear against his sternum and hearing his heart beat the entire time. He grounded himself with the weight thrown across his legs and fingers digging so perfectly into that muscle along his shoulder that always got knotted. How did Keith even know—?</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro, let’s, uh, think this through… I mean leaving the show is a huge deal. You’ll lose a lot of money right?”</p><p> </p><p>In his head, Keith had happily agreed to leave the show and the two drove off together into the sunset to an undisclosed location. Shiro really had to stop letting his wants distort reality, though.</p><p> </p><p>“But, I mean, it wasn’t all that bad before Adam, right?” Keith went on. His fingers left Shiro’s shoulder and Shiro made a sloppy grab for them, wanting them back. “And the producers said they would let you dismiss him right after a date, so all you have to do is get through it and then smooth sailing, right?”</p><p> </p><p><em>You dumbass. </em>The realization and memory crashed into him with the force a weighty brick.</p><p> </p><p>Keith had initially signed on for the money. If Shiro left, he wouldn’t just be wrecking his own finances.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>You absolute dumbass.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro pressed his face into Keith’s chest, wanting to apologize, to take it all back and beg forgiveness, but no, wait, Shiro could salvage this. He hadn’t fucked up yet. He had only been in the process of fucking up. There was a difference.</p><p> </p><p>“Keith,” he said. His fingers found Keith’s chin and directed his gaze to his. His eyes really were fucking violet, like amethysts plucked from the earth. “I need to know that you’ll be okay with this. If I continue.” Because if not, Shiro would make it work. He would work out something with production, give his money to Keith, whatever it took to prove he wasn’t a selfish jerk.</p><p> </p><p>“Why would my opinion matter?”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>He really is that oblivious, huh.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t know whether to be endeared or threatened. Even an aware Keith seemed a hazard to his health, but a Keith that was unaware of the damage he could and did cause?</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was sure he could take over the world.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro let a huff. He had the speech prepared. He could rework it. “I swear to God, Keith. I don’t know how I can be any clearer to you. I don’t know who made you this way, so quick to doubt, but when I find them I will hurt them. I am very, very interested in you, Keith. You will be my final pick at the end of this. We’ll have to make a show of an engagement for the cameras but afterwards I want to date you for however long you wish. And if I end up being able to put a ring on this finger, I will consider myself the luckiest man alive.”</p><p> </p><p><em>Nailed it. </em>Thank God that hour in front of the mirror had some pay off.</p><p> </p><p>Keith stared him. Shiro could see his mind working, trying to find a hidden message or misinterpret but Shiro didn’t see a way his words could be twisted.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh,” Keith settled on. Shiro wanted to chase the blush that crept up Keith’s neck to settle in his cheeks.</p><p> </p><p>“Was that clear enough for you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh, yeah. Very clear.”</p><p> </p><p>“Good.”</p><p> </p><p>“Um-hmm.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro couldn’t shake the notion that Keith was temporary, promises and dreams made flesh that would vanish out in the sunlight. He flexed his arms around him, making himself confident in their hold and Keith’s existence. “And if you ever feel doubt or at any point want to run, those are valid feelings. But I… I need you to run to me first, Keith.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith was not Adam. He would not repeat the same mistakes. He would have no more nightmares of Keith under someone else and he would make sure Keith knew he was cherished. For if the relationship did end, Shiro would not be sitting on his couch replaying different scenarios, wandering ‘what if’ because he had already exhausted every option and crossed off every task.</p><p> </p><p>He made these vows to himself with a conviction he hadn’t felt in a long time.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>We're almost to the chapter ten retelling. I promise, we're almost there.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And just when you thought she was gone, she's back at it again!</p><p>Shiro falls well and truly in love and is a sap about it for the entire chapter. </p><p>TW: This is the one with Shiro's panic attack. Not a lot mentioned but it is there.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Let It Consume You</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The date with Adam was both mercifully short and lasted what felt like years to Shiro.</p><p> </p><p>He had vetoed all date ideas save for dinner and a play. Adam hated plays (“Why do they have to break out into song?” he would always say when Shiro dragged him along) but that wasn’t the only reason. It was also the one option that didn’t require a lot of interaction.</p><p> </p><p>He just had to sit by Adam in a dark room for over two hours.</p><p> </p><p>Which he did with stoic, barely leashed disgust. If he was going to be quizzed on the play afterwards, he would fail miserably. He took nothing in. His brain wouldn’t stop stewing on the fact that Adam was here, next to him, and he couldn’t throw himself out a window to escape.</p><p> </p><p>The one thing that kept him going through the night was the thought of Keith. Keith, with his wasp-thin waist, big eyes, and hair that was just long enough for Shiro to play with. Who smelled a little bit what Shiro thought home should smell like.</p><p> </p><p>Allura had agreed to give them another one-on-one if he went through with this all. And Shiro was weak enough to accept, but proud enough to feel guilty about it. He felt like a pet being coaxed into doing tricks for treats.</p><p> </p><p>When the play ended, Shiro stormed out of there, not waiting for Adam or the cameras. He agreed to do this; he had not agreed to fake happy or play nice.</p><p> </p><p>Matt caught up with him on his exit. “Sugar Bear, you know I’m all for angry Shiro and think he’s completely justified but the producers want we to ask you if you could maybe not scowl into the camera lens for two seconds like your glare could kill puppies. M’kay? Thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro looked at him.</p><p> </p><p>Matt covered the mouth piece attached to his headset. “Look, I had to ask. You don’t have to do anything so pretend like I have no control over you.”</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t have any control over me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Exactly!” He checked his phone. “Also, and I’m already telling them ‘no,’ but heads up. The staff tried to clear fireworks for your date with Keith.”</p><p> </p><p>Right, fireworks. Altea’s Finest staple. Because who didn’t wanted to be kissed while the world exploded around your in an array of colors?</p><p> </p><p>He paused as he thought about Keith. Keith, who had his head split open his first night, got pummeled by a jealous costar, and was unfairly confronted by Shiro’s ex. Who he was also subjecting to what was probably the lamest date ever at the soup kitchen/shelter he worked in. He didn’t want anyone else there, though, and the publicity would be great for the place.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, Matt. Tell them it’s a go. I want the fireworks.”</p><p> </p><p>Damnitt, if he couldn’t give Keith the world, he would at the very least give him a kiss under a firework-lit sky.</p><p> </p><p>Matt looked up at him. “Shiro…”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll be fine,” he insisted. The Shiro of a couple years ago could not handle fireworks. They sounded too much like a land mine going off. But, Shiro reasoned, just this summer he had been able to watch the 4<sup>th</sup> of July ones from his window and didn’t have much reaction outside from a tensing of muscles with each boom.</p><p> </p><p>He could bare it. For Keith he could.</p><p> </p><p>“This is a bad idea,” Matt told him. “Are you sure?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, I’m sure. I want the fireworks. I want a red carpet and doves taking off and a sunset beach. With Keith, I want it all.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, one thing at a time. Making a list here. Red carpet, now velvet or cotton? And we don’t have doves, but we do have some very confused pigeons.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro swatted at him.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>It wouldn’t go down in history or anything as one of AF’s most spectacular dates. But when the competition was naked bungee jumping and bikini skiing, Shiro supposed the bar was set abnormally high.</p><p> </p><p>It eased something in Shiro being back here, seeing the familiar faces. And it did funny things to him to see Keith among it.</p><p> </p><p>When Shiro had started out as a volunteer at the request of one determined Rosalynn to get him out of bed at least two days of the week, it had given him the wake-up call he needed. He knew only a matter of circumstance set them apart. Many were veterans, lost and adrift, forgotten by the country they had served. Like Shiro would have been if Adam hadn’t had a decent health care plan and had supported both of them while Shiro had recouped and then found his footing again. Seeing all of them, it had ignited a fire in Shiro and soon two days a week turned three, then Nadia told about Boulder Fields, he found himself part of that staff as it grew from an idea into a reality, and the domino effect fell into play.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was now involved in multiple outreach programs. He made a quarter of what he had with his space engineering degree, but he still had money for take-out once in a while. More importantly, he got out of bed most days and went to sleep, or what passed as sleep for Shiro, feeling like he had accomplished something.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had tried to get Adam involved, tugging him along one Saturday and then never again. Adam, Harvard-bound and fed from a silver spoon, hadn’t felt the same spark that Shiro did. He found the work tedious and didn’t understand why they didn’t have money to improve or replace when needed. Money had never been an object of concern for Adam. When Shiro had tried to explain that they existed on donations and the good-will of men, Adam called it a poor business plan.</p><p> </p><p>Plus, everyone had hated him.</p><p> </p><p>June had spent the entire time clucking her tongue, which in June-speak was as good as a “Bless your heart” from Tessa. Walter had avoided him. Tony had tried to draw him into conversation and then given up. Rhonda had taken one look at him and said he was “good to look at but not good for much else.”</p><p> </p><p>Adam hadn’t taken kindly to the animosity.</p><p> </p><p>“If you don’t marry him, I will.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was startled out of his reverie by June’s words. A carrot laid half-chopped before him. “Pardon?”</p><p> </p><p>June beamed at him, a light hand on his shoulder. “If you don’t marry your man out there, I will,” she repeated, amber eyes alight.</p><p> </p><p>“No, you won’t. I called dibs,” Rhonda said from behind him. “He’s going to be my fourth husband.”</p><p> </p><p>Walter sniffed. “I’m your fourth husband.”</p><p> </p><p>“Fifth husband, then.”</p><p> </p><p>Something warmed kindled in Shiro’s chest. He took a step back from his chopping, craning his neck and trying to see the unloading dock where he presumed Keith to be.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s out front.” June jerked her head towards the door. “Go take a look.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro left his vegetables to peer out the propped open front door.</p><p> </p><p>Keith was in the parking lot with a crowd around him. A red van was pulled up in front of him, supported off one tire by a jack. Two small kids, Tessa’s if he remembered correctly, were crouched alongside him.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, now you fit the wrench over the nut like this,” Keith was saying, narrating as he went. “And you gotta push down. Can you guys help me out here?”</p><p> </p><p>Both kids fell onto the wrench. Their combined weight, plus Keith’s shove, loosened the nut.</p><p> </p><p>“You guys are awesome. Can you help me out with the other three?”</p><p> </p><p>“He got Randy’s car running,” June told him as she approached, peering out at the scene over his shoulder. “Walter got his old tools out form the back and he’s been helping some of the folks for almost an hour now.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith’s hair was damp with sweat from being out in the sun. At some point, he had tugged off his button-down and tied it around his waist, leaving his torso in a tank top that was thankfully more tank than skin. His hands were dark with grease.</p><p> </p><p>“Like I said.” June hissed out her next words, “Marry him.”</p><p> </p><p>“Or I will!” Rhonda hollered.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wanted a million things in that moment. He wanted a ring on Keith’s finger and a promise already sealed. He wanted to loop his arms around him and never let go and boost to everyone “Yes, he’s mine.” He wanted to take Keith onto the nearest flat surface and erase every thought and everyone from his mind, until the only touch he could recall was Shiro’s. He wanted hands in his hair and skin beneath him and a ragged laugh in his ear. He wanted a kiss gentle, unsure and one that was hungry, consuming. He wanted to keep watching Keith and never, ever look away.</p><p> </p><p>After changing the tire, Keith headed towards the back to wash his hands. Shiro followed, a man possessed.</p><p> </p><p>He grabbed Keith in the washroom and pushed him up against the closest wall. He devoured him. It still wasn’t enough.</p><p> </p><p>“How the fucking hell are you so perfect?”</p><p> </p><p>Fires crackled beneath Shiro’s skin. He knew he had to put them out, had to control them. Because in the back of a washroom with his coworkers only feet away was not an ideal place. Shiro didn’t care about ideal, though. He just wanted.</p><p> </p><p>In his head, it unfolded in picture book fashion, with illustrations and everything. Keith, with his legs thrown over Shiro’s shoulder, his weight held up by Shiro and the wall he was braced against, mewling and so, so sweet as he tried not to choke Shiro. But he had no control with his feet off the floor and Shiro was on a mission. He would take Keith apart, piece by piece, and put him back together slowly. Until every other time was either erased or overshadowed. There wouldn’t be a speck of skin on Keith that Shiro hadn’t tasted, hadn’t mapped out with precision. He would know every place that made Keith squirm, every crevice that made him gasp, every pulse point that made his heart skip a beat.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s picture book did not include the fish eyed lens of a camera, though.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro paused in his assault and glared at the offender. “Don’t mind me,” Hunk said from behind the lens. “Continue.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro slammed the door on him perhaps a bit too hard. He kept one hand on the door as he returned to Keith, the fires dying beneath his skin but still there.</p><p> </p><p>He would not fuck or blow Keith in the back of a washroom, he promised himself. He had standards. But he would kiss Keith until he forgot his own name.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>If Shiro had had his way their date would’ve concluded in a hotel room with a ‘do not disturb’ sign affixed to the door. But he didn’t have his way. But he still had Keith so he didn’t pout too much as they ate dinner across from each out.</p><p> </p><p>Keith looked pretty under the string of lights strung out on the awning above him. Behind him, the riverwalk spilled out, carving an elegant ‘S’ in the land. He had his shirt back on (unfortunate) with the tops buttons undone to expose the unmarred line of his neck (fortunate).</p><p> </p><p>“So how’d you learn so much about cars?” Shiro asked while they waited for their appetizers.</p><p> </p><p>“My dad taught me a lot before he…before he passed. The rest I picked up along the way.” Keith tugged on the cuffs of his sleeves, pulling them over his knuckles. “I had to really. I know how important a car can be to someone.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro waited. He was patient.</p><p> </p><p>He was rewarded.</p><p> </p><p>“I sort of lived out of my car for a while. My foster families...they weren’t always the best. My car, though, was mine. No one could take it from me.”Keith’s gaze wouldn’t hold his, darting this way and that.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro vowed then and there that he would make sure Keith would always have a safe place to sleep at night.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro couldn’t just take, though.</p><p> </p><p>“My father,” he started than stopped. He cleared his throat. “No matter what I did, it was never good enough for my father. I think, looking back on it, he misplaced a lot of his own insecurities on me, lashing out because I reacted when my mother wouldn’t. It was like gasoline feeding fire. I always felt more at home at my grandmother’s. When she passed, it broke me.”</p><p> </p><p>He described his grandmother, a tiny Japanese lady whose hair was stuck in permanent curls and always smelled of peppermint. Despite her appearance, she could curse like a sailor when prompted.</p><p> </p><p>“After she passed, I got a little…lost. You’ll notice that’s a pattern of mine. Something happens and I fly off the handle. I went looking for fights and my dad was always happy to provide. My mother never got between us. I think she was scared of my father more than she loved me. They died in a car wreck one night and, suddenly, I was alone. Then my diagnosis happened a few months later and, well, the pattern held. I enlisted out of spite for my father, just to prove I could. That was always a sticking point of his, how I grew up privileged and didn’t know what it was like to struggle. I thought, if I’m going to have to face him soon, might as well come with the biggest middle finger I could find.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith’s head tilted to the side. “I’m sorry, Shiro.”</p><p> </p><p>That was all he said.</p><p> </p><p>And Shiro wanted to lunge across the table and crowd Keith and take and give in equal portions. Because he listened instead of spouting off with his own advice.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro knew he had been a fucking wreck back then, that his responses had been shades away from unhealthy. He knew his mistakes could fill books. He did not need to be told that. He just wanted someone to listen.</p><p> </p><p>His prayers had been answered with Keith.</p><p> </p><p>Their appetizer arrived them, Keith’s going wide at the big nacho plate, so Shiro put his plans on hold. Plus, they were in public. And on camera, he reminded himself, catching sight of the blinking red dot of Hunk’s camera a table across from them.</p><p> </p><p>The world did not need to see him ravage Keith (although a tiny part of him maybe, possibly wanted that).</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro forgot about the fireworks. He was so enchanted with Keith’s hands as his eyes, now more blue than violet, as they walked down the riverwalk. A nuke could have gone off and Shiro wouldn’t have noticed.</p><p> </p><p>Or so he thought.</p><p> </p><p>When the first one went off, Shiro’s muscles locked, more from surprise than anything. But his brain was already releasing the wrong chemicals and it was much too late to stop it.</p><p> </p><p>He was miles away, sweating under pounds of gear, stomach sick with adrenaline but he didn’t dare stop. They just needed to get out of the open. Find cover. His world was a brown haze and his mouth tasted of dirt.</p><p> </p><p>Roy was screaming through the comms in his ear. A warning and instructions.</p><p> </p><p>To this day, Shiro wasn’t sure who on their unit had stopped on the mine. Their scanners hadn’t picked up anything. They had assumed it wassafe.</p><p> </p><p>The world shrunk for one tiny second. All sound was sucked into a vacuum.</p><p> </p><p>And then…</p><p> </p><p>BOOM.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro?! Shiro, are you okay? What—?”</p><p> </p><p>That wasn’t right. There hadn’t been anyone there to ask if he was okay. His breathing, strained and painful, had been the only one on the comms. Roy’s leg had been in his field of vision, eerily still. His right side had been numb. His googles had been ripped from his his face, leaving a burning sensation across his nose.</p><p> </p><p>But this time hands found him a solid place to sit. Cool hands ran over his fevered skin, trying to stop his trembling. He could feel the shape of a scar against one palm and, with a jolt, he recognized.</p><p> </p><p>Keith. His Keith.</p><p> </p><p>Those hands clamped over his ears, muffling the noise. Shiro got his breathing under control as he put all his focus on Keith. Keith, with his tiny waist and grease stained hands and violet eyes. Keith, who had a dog and roommate named Pidge. Keith, who worked on cars and whose clothes were in all int tatters. Keith, who fell out of the sky and crashed into his life.</p><p> </p><p>He was here with Keith. He was not there. He had already lived through that once; he had no need to do it again.</p><p> </p><p>He clenched his grip tight on Keith and did not let go.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>“No.”</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro—.” Matt’s voice was a hissed whisper through the limo’s open door.</p><p> </p><p>“No. You can’t make me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro, would you quit snuggling your boyfriend and get out of the car?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro responded by staying in place where he laid draped across Keith’s lap, his head pillowed on Keith’s thighs, arms wrapped tight around Keith’s waist. His nose was buried against Keith’s stomach. Keith’s fingers laid motionless against his scalp. Keith breathed deeply, having fallen asleep during the ride back. His head listed against the opposing car door.</p><p> </p><p>And Shiro was not leaving for the world.</p><p> </p><p>His body was heavy after his attack. His brain worked sluggishly to get the right balance back, muscles sore from a fight-or-flight that hadn’t resulted in either. Shiro knew from experience this was normal. He would be fine after a good nap. A nap that he was bound and determined to have nestled in Keith’s lap.</p><p> </p><p>Before Keith had drifted off, he had been rubbing soothing circles along the back of Shiro’s, the massage continuing along his neck and shoulder blades as if Shiro needed more a reason for fall in love with him. He did miss the motions, but a limp and trusting Keith was not something to sniff at either.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro, he’s going to wake up with a crick in his neck sleeping that like.”</p><p> </p><p>Damn Matt, he knew just where to hit.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro tilted his head back and stared up at the Keith. The position was awkward. Sighing, he did as he was told, leaving Keith’s warmth. When Matt reached in to wake Keith up, Shiro slapped his hands away. He reached in, one arm sliding underneath Keith’s knees, the other looping across Keith’s upper back. He slowly slide him to the end and then up into his arms. Keith made a tiny sound but didn’t wake, head falling to nestle against Shiro’s shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, now take Sleeping Beauty—. Shiro! To the manor. Not to your place.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro paused on the walkway and debated his options. He could outrun Matt and the staff but at the cost of waking Keith. The image of Keith sprawled out on his sheets, even if he was only napping, was an intoxicating one though.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t make me get the spray bottle.”</p><p> </p><p>Ultimately, Shiro directed his feet back onto the path to the manor, not because of Matt’s threat but because Keith needed his sleep. They would have time, he promised himself. After leaving this show, Shiro swore he would do his hardest to convince Keith not to leave his bed for at least a week.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro took his time up the grand, sweeping staircase, wary of jostling Keith. He slept on, though. Shiro’s own muscles protested, mad at him for leaving safety and warmth to be put through this.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro paused when he got to Keith’s bed. Lance was snoring away in its twin, a lump under the blue sheets.</p><p> </p><p>He paused and he held Keith. Keith’s weight was a solid but unsubstantial heft in his arms. He knew he had a core of muscle in there. Knew those hands were strong and sure and didn’t tremble when they teased at the thin hairs at his scalp. Knew that his laugh, however rare, made his throat sound hoarse and his eyes sparkle. That his grin always started with the right side of his mouth kicking up first, followed by the other if the joke was worth it.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro held him and he wanted.</p><p> </p><p>He let himself want. He let himself tick over his plethora of Keith trivia. He let himself remember and replay. He let his blood heat and his heart pound and his mind plunge head first into the gutter.</p><p> </p><p>Because Keith, he now firmly believed, was worth it.</p><p> </p><p>He wanted.</p><p> </p><p>He let it consume him.</p><p> </p><p>“Now put him down,” Matt directed from the doorway, “and do not hop into bed with him.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro threw a glare at him over his shoulder. He did as he was told, though, letting his arms linger until he was sure Keith would not be disturbed. He pulled them from underneath Keith. Keith settled onto the blankets, brows knitting but eyes not opening.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro let himself gaze at him. The moonlight tinted his skin the lightest shade of blue. His lips were slightly parted as he breathed. A lock of his dark hair fell just shy of his left eye. His lashes were dark where they laid against his cheek.</p><p> </p><p>“Now back away.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro would strangle Matt when he got the chance. And every jury in the world would acquit him for it once they saw how pretty Keith was.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro yanked his jacket off before he stepped away, draping it over Keith’s chest and shoulder. Keith’s brows relaxed at the weight.</p><p> </p><p>From across the room, Lance snorted in his sleep and one arm flopped over the side of his bed as he turned.</p><p> </p><p>They would have time, Shiro promised as he stepped away and closed the door. Come hell or high water, he would make sure of it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Wouldn't it be funny if I ended this fic there? *ignoring mob demanding strip club retelling outside my window*  Wouldn't that just be downright hilarious?</p><p>In all seriousness, no, it is coming, I promise you. Next time.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>*Tosses chapter to the angry mob outside* Take it! It's what you wanted! The strip club date!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Let It Consume You</b>
</p><p> </p><p>“It doesn’t fix everything,” Rosalynn said over the phone after Shiro had recounted the previous night. “But it does help, having someone you can rely on, who you feel like is in your corner.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah.” Shiro’s voice was gruff. He fisted his metal hand on his jean-clad leg, resisting the urge that had plagued him since he had woken up on storming the manor, grabbing Keith, and running off into the sunset together. He was pretty sure that it would be considered kidnapping in some views.</p><p> </p><p>A good night sleep had restored his brain’s chemical balance, though a bone-tiredness did still linger in his muscles. He thought maybe he needed more time in Keith’s lap to be at a 100% again. Not a lot of time. 48 hours, perhaps.</p><p> </p><p>“Although, I do have to say, risking the fireworks was a bit of a rash move, Shiro.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know, I know. I thought… Well, I hoped I could handle it.”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a difference between toeing the line of your limits and barreling right into a situation that could trigger you. It might have been a good thing to ask for noise canceling headphones, for example.”</p><p> </p><p>But Shiro wearing a bulky pair of headphones hadn’t been a part of his vision of kissing Keith senseless as fireworks went off. Then again, having a panic attack and clinging to Keith like he was a life preserve hadn’t been a part of the vision either.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll do better. Next time,” he promised.</p><p> </p><p>Rosalynn hummed as if she could see a vision of them having this exact same conversation months or even years down the line. “So, what’s on the agenda for today?”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a group date. They won’t tell me where.” As long as Keith was there he didn’t really care.</p><p> </p><p>“Do have fun then, Shiro.”</p><p> </p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>Matt blindfolded Shiro on the car ride, so he well and truly had no idea where they were headed. When the car stopped and they pulled him out, Shiro could hear the heavy bass of dance music which ruled out a lot of options.</p><p> </p><p>Still, he couldn’t have guessed a strip club would be an approved date location for the show.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a tasteful strip club,” Matt told him. “For like high end CEOs and doctors.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro just glared at him. “I didn’t sign off on this.” A man walked by with pronounced pecs and a bowtie and little else. “And the guys are okay with—?”</p><p> </p><p>“The guys are fine,” Matt insisted. His grin was shit-eating. “Now you need to get ready for the show.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro snorted. “I am not performing, Matt.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, you won’t be. You are the lead of the show after all. The king of the hour so to speak.” As he spoke, he turned Shiro to face a gilded throne that had been set up on the floor before a curtained stage. “All you have to do is relax and enjoy the show. You can thank me later.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had a horrible feeling about all of this.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro needed to start trusting his gut on these types of things as it usually proved to be right.</p><p> </p><p>The curtain raised, the music pulsed out of the speakers, and Shiro felt his mind short-circuit.</p><p> </p><p>All of the guys were spread out before him, shirtless and in pleather pants that hide little to the imagination. Shiro’s eyes immediately went and locked in on Keith.</p><p> </p><p>Keith in pants that sculpted to every muscle on his body, his lean arms on display, and decked out in red glitter. Looking beautiful and sinful and everything Shiro wanted.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was in trouble.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro considered it a miracle he got through the performance without causing a scene. He had to clench a hand hard on his throne’s arm at one point to stamp the urge to rip Keith off that stage and devour him right there for all to see. Some would consider that display distasteful.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t know how he felt about the performance over all. If it had just been Keith and him, he might have enjoyed it a bit more, but the obvious glimpse of a camera lens in his peripheral reminded him of the hidden audience. That realization hit a few switches in his brain he hadn’t wanted to have flipped. The whole world was seeing Keith, how the cut of his shoulder fed into the dip of his clavicle and the noticeable divots right above his pants. Not just Shiro.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro stalked through the dance floor afterwards, ignoring all save for a hint of red glitter he was searching for. He had never been so thankful to be in a sturdy pair of jeans at the moment as certain things would have been made very obvious in a less forgiving pair.</p><p> </p><p>He happened upon Lance first.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro! How’d you enjoy the show?” Lance shook his shoulders in a shimmy, a cloud of blue glitter falling off him.</p><p> </p><p>“It was great.” Shiro tried for congenial and missed by a mile. His gaze still roved the floor, searching.</p><p> </p><p>“And, uh, listen about Keith…”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s gaze snapped to Lance. “What about Keith?”</p><p> </p><p>“Lotor offered him some Galra drink. If he isn’t sloshed by now, I’d be surprised. He was already feeling it when we took the stage. Just warning you.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had noticed all the guys had seemed shades of drunk. Keith had been no exception, tripping over his own feet at one point and laughing too loud when Lance had elbowed him. Shiro had even downed a few shots himself during the show, needing the numb things and feel a different fire in his belly. The fact that it was some special Galra drink did worry him more than if it had been your usual tequila.</p><p> </p><p>He was about to press for his details when his gaze locked on a hint of red just past Lance.</p><p> </p><p>Keith was there, looking like a dream. What wasn’t a part of Shiro’s dream was the other man with a wandering hand trailing up Keith’s arm, playing in the glitter.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t remember leaving Lance and crossing the floor, but he was suddenly there when Keith staggered back. He caught him and didn’t let go. Keith didn’t stiffen, didn’t bristle, just sunk into his hold.</p><p> </p><p>Keith’s head lilted back on a neck that seemed almost noodly. “Hey,” he slurred. His eyes looked huge, pupils dilated.</p><p> </p><p>Yeah, Keith was drunk.</p><p> </p><p>“I was going to show him to the backroom; let him sleep it off.” The guy, he had to be a dancer with that physique, reached out to take Keith from him.</p><p> </p><p>Keith made a noise. Shiro covered the skin the man was about to touch, tucking Keith further into him. Shiro didn’t know what expression was on his face as he snarled “I’ve got him” but the man took a step back.</p><p> </p><p>Keith snuggled into him, his skin almost feverish beneath Shiro’s hand. Something in Shiro settled. His boy was here. His boy was safe.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on, man. You have to do your thing for the cameras. Look, I get it. He’s part of your harem; I won’t touch him. I’ll just take him—.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro blamed the man’s words for flipping another switch in his brain. That he even though he could touch Keith—.</p><p> </p><p>And that damn hand was reaching for Keith again, not taking the fucking hint.</p><p> </p><p>Keith was beautiful and desirable but he was his dammit. Other men had to learn to deal with what they had missed out on.</p><p> </p><p>Not thinking so much as reacting, Shiro hefted Keith into his arms. “I said I’ve got him.”</p><p> </p><p>He was reminded of their audience when he spotted the gleam of a camera lens over the man’s shoulder. Keith’s fingers rubbed at his furrowed brow, a frown on his lips, and Shiro bit at his fingers playfully when they were within reach. Keith’s answering laugh was too loose to fool anyone.</p><p> </p><p>He was high as a kite right now. And that damn camera was capturing every minute of it. If his boy wanted to get drunk fine, but he would be damned if the entire world got to see a drunk Keith. Keith had built up walls; he wasn’t vulnerable easily.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro showed the camera his back as he walked off in search of said backroom, keeping Keith close.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, he did find out, slamming the door and locking it to keep others out. His boy was pliant and boneless and Shiro deposited him against the back of the door, looking up at Shiro with glazed eyes.</p><p> </p><p>He tried to get some answers out of Keith, tried to douse the fire that was raging beneath his skin.</p><p> </p><p>Keith was drunk, he had to remind himself. Very, very drunk.</p><p> </p><p>He was derailed when he spotted fingerprints in the glitter along Keith’s arm and clavicle. He gritted his teeth at the sight. Keith made a small sigh, his hand hovering uncertainly over the limb. Shiro took over for him, rubbing hard at the glitter until the evidence was gone from view. He let his hind brain take over then as he mouthed against the marks on Keith’s clavicle.</p><p> </p><p>He wondered if Keith would be opposed to wearing a ‘Property of Shiro’ shirt at all times.</p><p> </p><p>He knew it wasn’t Keith’s fault. Keith was enticing even when he wasn’t trying. The world just needed to understand that, now that Shiro had found him, he wasn’t letting go and he wasn’t sharing.</p><p> </p><p>Keith mewled under his lip’s ministrations. A breathy “Shiro” fell from his mouth, making Shiro hard (well, harder) in his jeans. When he pulled back to admire his handiwork, Keith surged forward, one leg coming up high on Shiro’s hip and hands falling on the back of his head.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro let himself go for a moment, let himself indulge. Keith’s lips were warm and like butter beneath his. The glitter provided a slight texture that wasn’t at all unpleasant. Keith’s skin was heated. His hips canted forward when Shiro pressed down, creating a delicious friction and rhythm that Shiro knew all too well.</p><p> </p><p>He just knew. He just knew it would be good with Keith.</p><p> </p><p>And Keith was drunk.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro ripped his lips free. Keith let out a cry, head tilting to try and reclaim him, but Shiro grabbed his hips, stilling all further motions. “Shit. Keith, baby we can’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“We can,” Keith told him, as if Shiro were arguing over a physical possibility. “We just were.”</p><p> </p><p>“No I meant. Fu—. Not when you’re like this.”</p><p> </p><p>“The glitter’s edible—.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s mind supplied him with vivid images of Shiro licking every inch of Keith’s skin clean. Every inch. “God, Keith, I did not need to know that! We can’t. I promise, baby, I want to but if we—when we do this I want you aware.”</p><p> </p><p>“I am aware,” Keith’s words slurred together. It took Shiro a second to parse them out, proving his point.</p><p> </p><p>“I promise,” Shiro said to him, offering up the same edict that had helped him sleep that night, “we have time.” When Keith continued to protest, Shiro shushed him. “Keith, when we do this, I want time with you. I want all night and the morning with you. I want a bed, not the back room of a strip club that would light up like a Christmas tree under a blue light. And I want you completely consenting and aware so that you remember every bit of it.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith wasn’t going to disappear. Shiro didn’t have any plans on leaving either. So Shiro gave voice to his dreams. Not all of them, but some.</p><p> </p><p>“Fantasy nights are only two weeks away,” Shiro offered as concession.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t really want my deflowering broadcast live.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s entire world screeched to a halt. The world stopped spinning. The floor fell out beneath him and Shiro was hurdling into the deepest vacuum of space because Keith did not mean what he thought he meant. He did not.</p><p> </p><p>He could not. Shiro was a man who had been through hell and deserved something good but not that good.</p><p> </p><p>Because Shiro was only so strong and Keith was already bringing him to his knees on a daily basis.</p><p> </p><p>“Keith, you have had sex before, right?”</p><p> </p><p>He must have misheard. Or Keith was making an exaggerated comment in his addled state.</p><p> </p><p>Keith stared ahead of him, eyes round and lips tight. He blinked, as if processing what he had just said.</p><p> </p><p>“Keith?”</p><p> </p><p>Sure, Shiro had had fantasies, but they were just that. He didn’t get to—. He couldn’t—.</p><p> </p><p>“Define sex,” Keith said with an air of bluntness which told him nothing.</p><p><br/>“Keith, I need you to be very clear with me. I know that’s hard for you right now and I’m sorry baby, but how far have you gone?” He needed to understand so he could get a handle on himself. His mind was whirling, flipping through images and he needed to get off this ride because as thrilling as it was it couldn’t possibly be reality.</p><p> </p><p>Keith could not be a virgin.</p><p> </p><p>Just, look at him!</p><p> </p><p>He remembered a half-dream, Keith’s toes curling against his sheets, a stuttered moan in his ears and a “No one’s ever,” igniting a fire in his chest as his hips snapped forward, pushing Keith across the mattress. A body beneath him that arched into every touch and flinched on instinct but was rewarded with only pleasure.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>And no, no, no. Enough of that. Get that outta here!</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro knew the fantasy of that was just that. He didn’t hold Keith to that. He wouldn’t.</p><p> </p><p>But then Keith said “This week or like ever?” in response to his question and Shiro’s tentative hold on his sanity slipped.</p><p> </p><p>“Keith, please tell me that you’ve gone farther than you have with me these past two months.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith stared forward, silence saying more than he ever could.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro heard a joint on his hand creak. He couldn’t stop the floodgate of pictures pouring into his head.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro hadn’t needed Keith to be untouched, hadn’t even been hoping for it save for in the deepest corners of his disillusioned mind.</p><p> </p><p>But damn if it didn’t add an intoxication to things.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Fucking hell</em>,” he panted, trying to keep himself from taking Keith on the floor right then and there and reminding him of all his reasons, which seemed paper-thin now.</p><p> </p><p>He also made a note to fly to Colorado and ask the entire population what the hell was wrong with them.</p><p> </p><p>How the hell was this possible.</p><p> </p><p>How did Shiro get this lucky?</p><p> </p><p>“I did say I didn’t have a lot of experience,” Keith pointed out.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s very different from having never—!” Shiro choked on the rest of his words. Keith on his bed, Shiro hovering over him, having no one to compete with or erase from memory. Showing and proving exactly why Shiro was a good choice as a boyfriend and Keith needed no one else.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t like being touched!” Keith said as an explanation.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro stiffened. He had been doing nothing but touching Keith since the word ‘go’. Had he made him uncomfortable? Misread signs that hadn’t been there to begin with? That was the exact opposite of passing; that was flunking.</p><p> </p><p>“But, with you it’s different. I don’t mind you,” Keith said and Shiro could breathe again. He hadn’t failed. He still had a chance.</p><p> </p><p>As Shiro stared at Keith, he plotted and planned for every stretch of skin on his body. It was a heady thought. That Keith trusted him enough when he hadn’t others, deeming Shiro special. That every touch, every swipe of his tongue, and crook of his finger would be Keith’s first (and only) and his to call. There would be no shadow over them, no past to overcome. Shiro got to introduce Keith to a world of pleasure and guide him through it, show him why it was a good thing he had waited but Shiro was the best at a particular skill set. Keith didn’t have to worry about being in pain or being uncomfortable. Shiro would learn Keith’s body like an instrument and conduct every night like it was symphony.</p><p> </p><p>God had gifted him this dazzling, delicate boy and he vowed not to waste the opportunity. He would have to start going to church again in thanks.</p><p> </p><p>It was like a final test. And Shiro got to put all his knowledge to use and, if he passed, he got Keith.</p><p> </p><p>Wonderful, untouched Keith who was a goddamn miracle.</p><p> </p><p>Who was currently wrapping his arms tight around himself, looking unsure and gaze darting.</p><p> </p><p>No, no. None of that.</p><p> </p><p>“Keith,” he exhaled. “I want you to know that this is the exact opposite of a problem.”</p><p> </p><p>When he bent forward to kiss Keith, he kept it tight and controlled, though his skin itched and his fingers twitched to fist in Keith’s hair and give him a prelude of what was to come.</p><p> </p><p>Keith was drunk, he reminded himself, and they had had enough revelations for one evening.</p><p> </p><p>And they needed a fucking bed for anything further.</p><p> </p><p>A knock on the door jolted a growl loose from Shiro. Keith jerked against him, hands gripping his shirt. He checked the lock. His boy was here, so very vulnerable, and he was going to keep him safe.</p><p> </p><p>But it was only Hunk.</p><p> </p><p>Right, they were still on a TV show.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro ran a comforting hand down Keith’s bare back. His skin was a simmer now, cooling from the blaze it had been. His boy snuggled into his chest, trusting. His eyelids dropped.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wanted to stay in that room with him but he knew a locked door didn’t make for good television. And the last thing Keith would want was a field of cameras capturing even a second of him in this state.</p><p> </p><p>“I promise you, baby, we have time,” he said into the shell of his ear. “And I’m going to cherish you, just you watch. I’m going to make you so happy.”</p><p> </p><p>He walked Keith to the couch in the back of the room. Glaring at the ratty futon wouldn’t turn it into a clean, fluffy bed so this was the best Shiro could do in that moment. He tugged off his jacket and coaxed Keith’s arms through to cover up his bare torso. He ran a hand through Keith’s hair, lingering for a moment as Keith settled onto the couch and cuddled into his jacket.</p><p> </p><p>His heart missed a beat.</p><p> </p><p>When he tugged the door open, he yanked Hunk inside. “I want you to keep an eye on him,” he instructed him. “Don’t let anyone in. Let no one touch him.”</p><p> </p><p>Hunk nodded his head, eyes wide and hands up in a calming gesture. “Sure, sure, but, uh,” he called to him when Shiro made to leave the room, knowing if he stayed a moment longer he would find himself wrapped around Keith and wouldn’t leave. “Shiro, you have Keith-glitter, like, everywhere, just FYI.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro swiped a hand across his lips and, sure enough, red sparkles winked at him. Keith had been the only one wearing red glitter. There would be no wrong ideas in that regard.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro shrugged and wiped his fingers across his cheek bone. “Good.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>On the list of ways Shiro wanted to wake up, Lance pounding on his door and screaming his name was pretty far down the list.</p><p> </p><p>He tore himself from dreams of pale skin and inky hair and found a shirt before he answered the door. “Wha—?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s Keith.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro felt his gut fall into his feet as he rushed past Lance, up the manor stairs, and up the sweeping stairwell. He shoved past startled staff members, heart in his throat, until he stumbled into bathroom and saw Keith’s prone form. Keith squinted up him, confused.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, baby.” Keith was here. He was safe, he told himself. His cheeks were unnaturally pale and angry red hives stamped across that beautiful skin of his, but he was okay.</p><p> </p><p>He put his metal hand to Keith’s forehead, knowing the digits were nice and cool. He took stock of the sweaty hair, the smell of bile, and Keith’s unfocused gaze. Keith flinched as the noise of the staffers outside increased, curling in on himself.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro made a decision. “Hang on for a second, okay, baby?”</p><p> </p><p>“What happened?” he asked Romelle the second he was out the room. She sputtered and squawked, quaking in her heels.</p><p> </p><p>It was the medic who answered. “Quintessence poisoning. While it’s a nice drink for Galra, it’s poisonous to humans. We’ve given him antibiotics but we need an IV to make sure he stays hydrated. His stomach’s going to be weak for the next twenty-four hours.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro eyed all the staff and saw someone with a camera. He wanted to punch the lens.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m taking him to my place,” he told them, then to the medic, “You can administer the IV there.”</p><p> </p><p>The medic nodded. “A quiet and safe place would be best for him.”</p><p> </p><p>“Y-You can’t—,” Romelle stuttered.</p><p> </p><p>“That wasn’t a request,” Shiro snapped and then ducked back into the bathroom. With care, Shiro hefted Keith into his arms and tried not to focus on how right Keith felt there, cradled against his chest.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had pictured Keith in his bed.</p><p> </p><p>He hadn’t been prepared for the reality.</p><p> </p><p>Keith was there, visible from the hallway light, curled up against his pillow, dark hair spread out behind him and legs tangled in his sheets.</p><p> </p><p>It did something to him. Sure, it heated his blood but it also brought a comfort to him, like coming home at the end of a long day felt.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro yanked his tie lose, grabbed his sweats, and meant to leave Keith in peace but somehow found himself perched at the very edge of the bed, fingers in Keith’s hair, assuring himself. Keith’s skin was better. The hives were all but gone. The only red left was a faint blush on his cheek and Shiro’s hickeys half concealed by the neckline of his shirt.</p><p> </p><p>Keith woke then and he was busted. He used the time to his advantage, getting Keith to drink and lulling him back into sleep.</p><p> </p><p>“You can go back to sleep, baby. I’ll just get a pillow and get out of your hair.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith’s eyes snapped open. He made to prop himself up on an elbow. “Wait, no. I can sleep on the couch, I don’t want—.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro bristled at the very thought of putting Keith on his couch. He deserved the best mattress and silk sheets and a warm duvet every night.</p><p> </p><p>When Keith shuffled towards the edge though and patted the empty space beside him, Shiro felt a wire pop loose in his brain.</p><p> </p><p>He tempered himself, reminding himself of reality versus the fantasy. “Keith, I… I get nightmares. I don’t want to disturb you.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith’s brows scrunched as he mulled that over. “I sleep like the dead. You won’t, I promise.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro hesitated. He was at war. He tossed and turned most nights and didn’t want to subject Keith to that. Before he and Adam had started sleeping separately, the long nights on the both of them made them even more hostile to each other.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t want that. He didn’t want to give Keith something to resent him for.</p><p> </p><p>But...the space beside Keith looked so inviting.</p><p> </p><p>He would try, Shiro told himself as he yanked on his sweats in the bathroom and brushed his teeth as fast as possible. If he woke up, he would leave for the couch. Or, better yet, he could indulge for a while, until Keith was deep in sleep and then slip out.</p><p> </p><p>In the dark of his room, Shiro was more hesitant than he thought he would be. When he crawled in and Keith’s weight shifted back against him, Shiro caught him and held him tight. He smelled mint and the faint lingering scent of his soap.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro couldn’t remember the last time he had slept with someone against him. His body ached for it.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you usually sleep with that on?” Keith asked him, running fingers over her prosthetic.</p><p> </p><p>“Not usually.” But with Keith here, still vulnerable, tucked up tight against him, Shiro felt the need to add another layer of protection. He knew it was high unlikely that the staff would come and rip Keith from his arms in the middle of the night, but the fear was there, unfounded but present.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t trust any of the staff aside from Matt and maybe Hunk. From the whole Adam fiasco, he knew they were more focused on manufacturing drama than anything. Heck, Keith had gotten poisoned from their carelessness.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro truly meant to stick to his original plan. Of holding himself still and soaking up the feel of Keith sleeping beside him and then secreting away at some point in the night. But as he laid there, the only other sound being Keith’s breathing, Shiro found his muscles relaxing and his eyes slipping shut.</p><p> </p><p>He woke to birds chirping, sunlight streaming in, Keith still in his arms, and Matt standing before the bed, arms crossed and brow raised. He made a whipping motion when he saw he had Shiro’s attention. Shiro just cuddled into Keith, ignoring him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Okay from this point we might hop around a bit as Shiro's arc has kind of ended and I don't think anything, outside from the hometown, from his point of view going forward will add anything you couldn't already tell from context clues. I mean did you really want to see him make out with Curtis? I didn't so...</p><p>So right now my plan is to do the hometown date (and night if you know what I mean), then hop forward to when Keith went MIA, and then a epilogue chapter. So three chapters left!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>God when I die: What do you have to say for yourself?</p><p>Me: Your boy Ezekiel left kudos so... </p><p>Can I write 9 pages of pure smut and jealous, horny Shiro? The answer might surprise you.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Let It Consume You</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Keith belonged in the desert. Shiro filed the image of him astride his red bike, hair tousled and eyes bright, away for later rumination.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that all you got?” he called over his shoulder, urging his bike forward to overtake Keith. He caught the flash of a grin before Keith revved his engine.</p><p> </p><p>At the approaching sight of a cliff, Shiro swung his bike so it was horizontal, assuming Keith would stop as well. But Keith blew past him. Shiro had a leg braced against the ground and turned, feeling panicky as he watched Keith zoom towards the cliff.</p><p> </p><p>“Keith—!” His heart missed a beat when he saw Keith fly over it. He swung his leg up, directing his bike to the path, fully expecting to see Keith’s broken body and busted bike when he cleared the curve.</p><p> </p><p>Instead he saw Keith, hair swept back and a cocky grin on his lips, all in one piece and unscathed.</p><p> </p><p>That grin did something to Shiro.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought you said you knew how to ride—,” Keith started before Shiro yanked him off his bike and pressed his lips against his. He tasted of sand and dirt and sweat and Shiro loved it. Keith’s back hit his bike, the metal holding him up so Shiro could simply take.</p><p> </p><p>“You are insane,” Shiro told him when he parted to take a breath.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve cleared bigger jumps,” Keith said.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s heart went into his throat. It was possible there was a reality out there where Keith was dead in a gorge and he had never met Shiro. There was a Shiro out there that had never known Keith, never known how tiny his waist was or how his eyes turned blue in the right light, or how he no longer bristled at Shiro’s touch, going pliant on instinct that made Shiro want to howl.</p><p> </p><p>He tightened his hold on Keith, assuring himself that this was not that reality.</p><p> </p><p>Hunk pulled up on his jeep, clearing his throat. Shiro wanted to go right on kissing Keith but Keith turned and Shiro was left to nuzzle at his hairline.</p><p> </p><p>“As lovely as this all is,” Hunk said to them, “we need to wrap it up for part two?”</p><p> </p><p>“Part two?” Shiro asked. His mind went to bedsheets and somewhere flat where sand wouldn’t wedge into very unpleasant cracks.</p><p> </p><p>Keith winced and Shiro knew it was nothing of the sort. He was not disappointed. Really, he wasn’t. As long as Keith was there, he would enjoy himself.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was not enjoying himself. Not one bit.</p><p> </p><p>Sure, baking with Keith sounded like a dream on paper. He was mind went straight to R-rated territory though, with drizzling chocolate and tongues. Still, a PG-13 version of the date should have been, as long as Shiro had his hands on Keith and got to lick his fingers clean in the end.</p><p> </p><p>No where in either version had there been a Frenchie who <em>could not </em>keep his hands to himself.</p><p> </p><p>They were on a date for Christ’s sake and this guy was crowding against Keith—his Keith—showing him how to whip the eggs and butter together as if Shiro was not right here.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro felt the metal of the spoon bend underneath his hand.</p><p> </p><p>What did he have to do? Take out an ad on Facebook? Keith Kogane was taken by one Takashi Shirogane and everyone else needed to back off because he wasn’t giving him up for the world. Would that ‘Property of Shiro’ T-shirt work? He would have to convince Keith of that. A ring?</p><p> </p><p>His mind latched onto the image of Keith wearing a simple, onyx band with violet undertones that matched his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>That was dangerous territory. Dangerous and intoxicating and—.</p><p> </p><p>And there was that damn chef, breath fanning over Keith’s neck, tilting forward into space that was Shiro’s damn it.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro slammed a hand down on the table, though he hadn’t meant to. He stepped up behind Keith, crowding the other man out. “We’ve got it from here, thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>His boy tilted his head up to look at him, eyes blinking owlishly. Shiro ran a comforting hand down his back, keeping his stance behind Keith as the lesson wore on. At one point Frenchie’s hands did try to stray again, worming their way around Shiro, trying to adjust Keith’s hold. Shiro smacked them away.</p><p> </p><p>He was liking the idea of that ring more and more.</p><p> </p><p>“I know this kind of lame,” his boy said when they had their desserts in the oven. The chef was leaving the room to take a call. Shiro kept his gaze on him because he did not trust him one bit. “But Allura really wanted it. Something about promoting the restaurant. And, hey, we get free dessert out of it.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll just feel better when we’re out of here,” Shiro let himself slip, feeling agitated.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro forced his attention back on his boy. It wasn’t Keith’s fault, he knew. Keith was wonderful and pretty and others couldn’t help themselves. And that was fine. They could look from a distance and want. But touching was where Shiro drew the line.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro said as much but Keith blinked at him, uncomprehending. “Huh?”</p><p> </p><p>“Keith, he was flirting with you.” A neon sign would have been less obvious and probably less harmful to the guy’s hands if Shiro caught those fingers near Keith again.</p><p> </p><p>Keith laughed. “No, he wasn’t. I’m bad at crème brulee apparently. And he’s French. Aren’t all French guys like hands-on?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s mind conjured up the image of Keith and a thousand French men with wandering hands. And his beautiful Keith, woefully oblivious. Shiro forced himself to inhale and exhale at a steady rate. That wasn’t real, he reminded himself. Keith was here, still untouched and still his. “Keith, I really want to ask what you mean by that and at the same time I think it’s very important that you never tell me.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro would declare war on an entire country if that was what it took.</p><p> </p><p>After some back and forth, Keith insisted, “Guys don’t flirt with me, Shiro.”</p><p> </p><p>If Shiro could believe that, it would be a fantastic day. But he was beginning to realize more and more that it wasn’t that guys didn’t want Keith; it was just that he didn’t notice. Through whatever grace on Earth, Keith was all but oblivious to come-ons and subtle flirting. That was how he gone untouched for so long. Not because an entire state was blind and dumb.</p><p> </p><p>But none of that mattered any longer, Shiro supposed.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro pulled Keith’s fingers to his lips, licking at the residue of sugar there. “No, they won’t anymore. You’re mine now.”</p><p> </p><p>He would take out however many ads. Get a plane and write it in the sky. Shoot a freaking commercial. Convince Keith to wear a T-shirt proclaiming it to the world.</p><p> </p><p>Place a ring on his finger, if he was so lucky,</p><p> </p><p>Whatever it took, Shiro would find a way to tell every other hot-blooded man to back the fuck off. They had missed out. He had found this lovely gift and he would cherish it in no way anyone else could. And God help the man who tried to take this from him.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s shoulder was being used as a pillow.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had never felt so useful.</p><p> </p><p>His boy was curled up in the hospital’s plastic green chair, resting his head on Shiro’s shoulder. By his breathing, he was sleeping or at least very close to it. Despite the throbbing along his neck from holding the stiff posture, Shiro stayed still, one hand on Keith’s waist to keep him steady.</p><p> </p><p>His boy wanted him to stay. Felt safe and comfortable around him. Shiro felt like he could float right to the moon on the feeling in his chest.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” came a soft voice from his left.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro turned to see Katie there, her eyes red but dry behind her glasses. “He’s out?” she asked, looking over Keith.</p><p> </p><p><br/>Shiro nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“Dad’s cleared for the night but they’re aren’t allowing visitors until the morning. You can probably take him home. We’re going to stay the night.” Katie studied him, lips pressed into a thin line. Her gaze followed to where Shiro rested his hand, Keith’s limp body sprawled against his own. Her tiny hands were made into fists. “I have to give you the best friend speech, you know. That if you ever hurt him I’ll roast your balls over an open fire while they’re still attached.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro fought a grin. “I’d probably do that to myself long before you ever could.”</p><p> </p><p>She gave a tiny nod, as if satisfied. “I’m trusting you for now. But you have to take care of him, okay? Keith isn’t good at taking care of himself.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve gathered.” Shiro recalled the bruises on his back from flag football and how he had shied away from Shiro’s touch, Shiro’s care.</p><p> </p><p>Pidge took a seat across from him. “How much has he told you?”</p><p> </p><p>“That he lost his parents young. Grew up in the system. Had a rough time around it.” Shiro’s hand tightened on Keith reflexively. He wished he had found him sooner, could go back in time and care for him longer.</p><p> </p><p>Pidge stopped kicking her legs into the open air. “He didn’t tell you what he did for me?” Her eyes were glassy.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro felt like he was on the precipice of something. “No. What did he do for you?”</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Well, now Shiro just had to blow Keith.</p><p> </p><p>It was the law.</p><p> </p><p>Because he needed more of a reason to fall in love with his boy. Finding out the extents of his selflessness hadn’t been one of his goals tonight, but here they were.</p><p> </p><p>What now was one of his goals was making sure that Keith knew he was being taken cared of and he had been right to trust Shiro with this. Shiro was more than up to the task.</p><p> </p><p>He swallowed around Keith’s dick, employing all of his tricks. Running his tongue along the back and swirling it around the tip, lapping at his slit. Hollowing his cheeks and adding a hint of teeth when he felt Keith jerk. Rubbing his fingers against the juncture of Keith’s hips so he didn’t lock them, didn’t strain the muscle.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was damn good at blow jobs. If his past partners could give Yelp reviews, he was sure five stars all around And he would make sure Keith was no exception. Keith was the prize, after all. This was his first time, his first experience with something like this and he had chosen Shiro. Shiro would make sure Keith would be left dazed and wrung dry, unable to think aside from the sensations that Shiro gave him. Shiro would make sure that, late at night, when Keith’s hand wasn’t enough, he would pull out this memory and still be left unsatisfied because the memory was never as good as the real thing. Of course, Shiro was betting on being nearby for many nights to come, so there was no reason Keith needed to survive on memory alone.</p><p> </p><p>And still his boy tried to keep his hips back, tried to not choke Shiro because even now, like this, his boy was considerate.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro couldn’t have that, though. He wanted his baby to feel good, to just feel.</p><p> </p><p>An idea formed and Shiro acted on it. He flung Keith’s legs over his shoulders, forcing Keith forward, down his throat, and removing any control Keith did have. Keith’s heels scrabbled against his back, digging but not finding any hold.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro cupped his thighs and dug into the flesh. It yielded to his touch. Keith mewled and could do nothing but endure what Shiro had in store for him.</p><p> </p><p>Keith was heavy and twitching in his mouth. Shiro wrung all the sounds out of him that he could muster. He gasped sharply when Shiro added his teeth. He moaned prettily when Shiro sucked on his head. He sucked air between his teeth when Shiro gripped his thighs hard enough to bruise.</p><p> </p><p>“Sh-Shiro…” Shiro wanted to record that sound and make it his goddamn ringtone. “I’m going to—.” Fingers dug into his hair, tugging. “AH! Shiro—!”</p><p> </p><p>Gaze flicking up to lock with Keith’s, Shiro sucked. Hard.</p><p> </p><p>So that was what his boy looked like when he came. Pretty and flushed with eyes glittering and lips red.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro swallowed because he was polite like that. He parted from Keith, who whined, and licked him clean, pausing when Keith’s dick pulsed and twitched, watching so he could commit it to memory. He returned Keith’s feet to the floor, but kept his hands on him.</p><p> </p><p>If they had the luxury of time, Shiro would’ve kept him on the edge for much longer. He would’ve denied him release until Keith was begging for it, eyes tearing up, but still feeling so good he wouldn’t ask for it to end. He would’ve edged him for <em>hours.</em></p><p> </p><p>But it was just as satisfying seeing Keith soft and his eyes glazed, sagging against him.</p><p> </p><p>“No one’s ever done that to you before, right?” Shiro asked, because he needed to hear the clarification. He needed to know that he was only one on the entire world that had seen Keith like this, breathless and wanting and content.</p><p> </p><p>“Y-You…” Keith said when Shiro made the mistake of rutting against him. “You need to—.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry about me, baby.” While Shiro was aching in his jeans, this hadn’t been about him. He had wanted to show Keith what he could do, how he could make him feel.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>You choose right, baby. There’s no mistake.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t have anything,” his boy said and maybe Shiro hadn’t done as good of a job as he thought he did if Keith was still talking. “You could use me.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro choked.</p><p> </p><p>He wondered sometimes if Keith was actually a virgin or if he had sex before and hadn’t even realized what had happened.</p><p> </p><p>Better to stick to the virgin belief as the alternative made Shiro think unpleasant, violent thoughts.</p><p> </p><p>He checked with Keith, to make sure Keith was offering under a willingness not a sense of obligation. Their entire sex life could boil done to Shiro sucking Keith off and he would be a happy man.</p><p> </p><p>But his boy’s eyes were bright, a deeper flush to his cheeks, the picture of wanton. He bit down hard on his lower lip. Shiro tugged it free so he could attack it.</p><p> </p><p>“Which way’s your room?” he asked Keith.</p><p> </p><p>Keith nodded in a general direction. Shiro lifted him off his feet and carried him off.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro now knew what he wanted his last meal to be on this Earth.</p><p> </p><p>A naked Keith, spread out before him, leaking and already hard again.</p><p> </p><p>Despite Shiro’s balls feeling like they really were blue at this point, Shiro took his damn time. He tugged his own shirt off, then went to help his boy, who shivered, both under his gaze and from the cold.</p><p> </p><p>It was better, so much better, than his dreams.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro let himself indulge, fingertips following the line of clavicle, down his sternum to the concave valley of his bellybutton and wrapping down and under to the dip of his hip flexor. He had a freckle on his neck. One more in the curve of his elbow. A faint scar marred his shin. He has hairless and Shiro wondered if that was due to the Galra genes or a preference.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro,” Keith painted. Shiro hushed him. His boy stared up at him, completely transfixed. The furrow between his brows was absent and he arched under Shiro’s fingers, meaning he wasn’t anywhere else but right here.</p><p> </p><p>Good. That was right where Shiro wanted him.</p><p> </p><p>His nipples were two rosy red peaks. Shiro let his fingers sweep up and over one, watching as it pebbled for him—only him. When they had time, Shiro wanted to know how sensitive Keith was here. If he could come from Shiro playing with them or if he needed more and he would be left mewling for it, on the edge but not tipping over. Would he respond to clamps? How about ice? He had to remind himself his boy was new to all of this; better to ease him in rather than overwhelm him.</p><p> </p><p>They would have time for everything.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro let his thumb prod and coax at the nipple, watching Keith’s face and dick as he did so. Keith screwed his eyes shut, fisting his hands in his bed sheets. His dick twitched, now standing fully erect.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro,” Keith moaned. His boy had the sense to keep his hands away, to let Shiro work, and Shiro smiled at that. By the time his fascination with Keith’s nipple was quenched, the thing was red and bruised looking—begging for Shiro’s lips.</p><p> </p><p>And who was he to deny?</p><p> </p><p>Keith’s hips shot off the bed. Shiro pushed him down.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought,” Keith gasped. “I thought you were supposed to be using me to…AH!”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro let his teeth bite down, not too hard, never too hard, to get his boy to be silent once more. When he pulled back, Keith’s nipple was shiny with spit and begging for more but Shiro had other objectives for the night.</p><p> </p><p>Keith was right. His jeans were painful, his zipper digging in with a spark of pain. He needed release before he went about playing with Keith anymore. He stared down at Keith, going over his options.</p><p> </p><p>Keith had admitted he didn’t have any lube, so that crossed out quite a few places.</p><p> </p><p>He could make Keith use his hand but that seemed boring to him. There was the cleft of Keith’s ass but without lube there would be some chafing. Keith’s mouth was a luxurious option but Shiro knew his boy was inexperienced and didn’t want to choke him or make him uncomfortable.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t want Keith to ever have any bad memories when it came to sex.</p><p> </p><p>He supposed he could wrap his fist around the both of them and use the friction to jerk them both off. But Keith’s dick seemed red and leaking and Shiro wasn’t sure Keith even wanted to come again. Jerking himself off while staring at Keith would get the job done.</p><p> </p><p>Or he could use Keith’s thighs.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro thought he deserved a seat on the UN for his ingenuity.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro unzipped himself and fisted his hand around the base to keep himself from coming over the release of pressure. He grabbed Keith’s leg, pushing them back towards his shoulder—fuck, Keith really was flexible—and directing him to squeeze his knees together. Keith followed instruction beautifully, squirming and looking unsure as Shiro crept over him, directing his dick through the hole left in Keith’s thighs. Keith’s eyes widened, his gaze flicking down, and if that didn’t make Shiro smirk with satisfaction.</p><p> </p><p>“Easy, baby, you don’t have to worry about taking it. Yet.”</p><p> </p><p>When the time did come, if Keith was ever comfortable enough, Shiro would make sure to prep him the point of exhaustion. He knew he was on the larger side. But his size meant he had a greater chance at nailing Keith’s prostate with every thrust. He would make sure Keith only saw the good, never the bad.</p><p> </p><p>Keith got the picture without Shiro having to tell him, squeezing his thighs around Shiro. Shiro swore, the pressure just right, shades of amazing even without lube to make the glide easier. Keith was right there, looking so sweet and so delectable.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t last long. Not with that sight laid out before him.</p><p> </p><p>He lowered Keith’s legs, now tacky with his release. He almost didn’t want to wipe it off. As he did so, he was greeted by the sight of Keith’s bobbing dick, shiny with pre-cum. Keith flushed as he followed Shiro’s gaze, squirming like he wanted to hide but there was no where he could go that Shiro wouldn’t find him.</p><p> </p><p>In a detached way, Shiro wondered how many times he could get Keith to come in one night if he was persistent. The thought was enough to make him feel dizzy.</p><p> </p><p>Keith tried to pull his legs free from Shiro’s hold, tried to hide from him. “Sorry—.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro swallowed his words with a kiss, wrapping his flesh hand tight around his prize. “Never be sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith cried so perfectly, never shedding actual tears but looking close as Shiro jerked him off.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>After assuring Keith that sex was not always that blissful and that Shiro would be taking no one else to bed save for Keith if he let him on the Fantasy Nights, Shiro knew he needed to allow his boy some rest. Against him, his muscles were lax, his eyelids heavy. As much as Shiro wanted to accelerate his discoveries and findings on Keith’s nipples, his boy was spent.</p><p> </p><p>They had time, Shiro promised himself.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you want to take that off?” Keith studied his metal arm. “Doesn’t it bother you to sleep with it on? I mean, whatever makes you comfortable, Shiro. I only want to...understand.”</p><p> </p><p>If Keith could stop being so perfect for five seconds, that would be great for Shiro’s sanity.</p><p> </p><p>In truth, Shiro wasn’t supposed to sleep with it on, a point of contention between him and his physical therapist. The arm was heavy and his muscles did need some time to relax, otherwise he would strain them. But Shiro had never liked detaching it for his sleep, never liked the vulnerability it left him with when he woke.</p><p> </p><p>He flexed his metal joints, feeling the strain in his shoulder and knowing if he didn’t give it a break, he would be paying for it tomorrow.</p><p> </p><p>This was Keith’s place. He was safe here. His boy was right beside him and not going anywhere for the next few hours.</p><p> </p><p>There was no battle, he reminded himself, that he had to be ready for.</p><p> </p><p>He detached his arm from his port, hand shaky, feeling Keith’s gaze on him. His weight slipped with the sudden absence but Keith caught him. He moved to place it on Keith’s nightstand. His boy didn’t shy away, didn’t show any hints of disgust. Only cuddled closer, his cold skin easing a fever within Shiro.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro did not expect to sleep with a naked Keith right there.</p><p> </p><p>But he did.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And now for the next chapter...PAIN.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And now for the pain!</p><p>Otherwise known as Shiro pines and suffers for 8 and a half pages until smut at the end.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Let It Consume You</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro couldn’t recall a time when he had been happier. With the final week on the show looming, Shiro felt like he was floating through his days.</p><p> </p><p>When his mind wasn’t focused on Keith, it was focused on after.</p><p> </p><p>They had an after.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro imagined a house. With a yard big enough to Kosmo and a garage big enough for Keith’s workshop. A kitchen, lit warm with the morning light, and carpet that one’s toes sunk into. A bathroom luxurious enough for him and a fireplace that was lit on cold nights. A fluffy blanket draped around Keith’s shoulder and the flames painting his skin with a golden sheen. And time. Endless hours, uninterrupted. Shiro could pursue and indulge until his heart’s content, though he doubted he would ever be satisfied.</p><p> </p><p>Those thoughts were the only things that carried him through those final weeks.</p><p> </p><p>The show put him on a circuit of interviews. Stuffed him into suits and paraded him across television sets, all to talk about his journey. They asked invasive questions and Shiro did his best to mitigate, neither confirming nor denying what had happened on Fantasy Night.</p><p> </p><p>That was just for him.</p><p> </p><p>The world didn’t need to know how Keith mewled under every touch. That he was ticklish on the back of his knee. That he had three moles on the back of one shoulder blade, like a constellation. That he had dimples at the base of his spine, like imprints of someone’s thumb. That he was every bit the dream Shiro had imagined, made real.</p><p> </p><p>They asked about Curtis as well. Shiro supposed the show had to spin it that way in order to cause some tension for the final episode. Still, he truly didn’t remember Curtis was even a part of the equation until he was reminded of him.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe Rosalynn would say he was too hyper-fixated on Keith.</p><p> </p><p>But Shiro didn’t want to stop.</p><p> </p><p>Curtis was a perfectly fine guy and maybe in other time, in other place… But that wasn’t this time or this place. Curtis had seemed content with his lot, though, never pushing Shiro or tearing down Keith.</p><p> </p><p>There was that one time, though, right before their non-existent Fantasy Night.</p><p> </p><p>The show had wanted to make it ambiguous though Shiro hadn’t wanted it to be. He didn’t want the world thinking he wasn’t fully committed to Keith. Allura had listed it as a necessity, despite his wishes.</p><p> </p><p>“We need tension, Shiro,” she had told him when the other producers had called her onto the scene. “We know Keith is a strong contender, but we can’t go into the final week with only one option. That isn’t how this show works. I’m not asking you to sleep with him. Just a kiss and the closing of a door. We’ll let the audience interpret the rest.”</p><p> </p><p>It was a part of the show, Shiro had reminded himself.</p><p> </p><p>And the show had given him Keith. He still got to walk out of this with him.</p><p> </p><p>So, he had kissed Curtis, feeling sick to his stomach the entire time. It had meant to be quick, decisive, but Curtis had gotten a little to into it. Mindful of the cameras, Shiro hadn’t wanted to shove him away when he had moved along the skin of his neck</p><p> </p><p>After the fact, when Shiro had seen the dark mark of a blooming hickey, he had wanted to grovel at Keith’s feet. He still did and meant to when the cameras had stopped rolling.</p><p> </p><p>Thoughts of the incident did slam Shiro right back down to Earth, so he tired to put it out of his mind, knowing he had to talk about with Keith at some point but not wanting to waste a second of their limited and precious time talking about another man.</p><p> </p><p>They had time. After.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro was still in high spirits before his last interview on his circuit, already plotting when he got back onto the manor’s grounds how he could get Keith back to his place The window was always an option. Or Shiro could just run into the manor, grab him, and run out. What was Allura going to do? Tase him?</p><p> </p><p>...Come to think of it, he wouldn’t put it past her.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro truly felt like his life had turned a corner. He had someone, nice and sweet and perfect, and he didn’t think getting out of bed would be quite the task it had once been.</p><p> </p><p>Or maybe it would, but this time for other reasons.</p><p> </p><p>And then, Matt called.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>This wasn’t fair. They were supposed to have time. They had an after.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s dreams had seemed within reach, only to be snatched from him. If life was trying to teach him a lesson, he didn’t want to learn it, not this way.</p><p> </p><p>Keith was missing.</p><p> </p><p>And no one had any clue where he was.</p><p> </p><p>He had hopped the gate and was gone.</p><p> </p><p>Like a wonderful, beautiful dream in the morning. All wisps and smoke Shiro couldn’t hold onto.</p><p> </p><p>And it was all due to the machinations of that damn show. Shiro didn’t why they hated him so, why they wanted to take this precious thing from him and tarnish it in such way. What had he done to them? Hadn’t he played by the rules (mostly)? He had gone on their interviews, had posed for the camera, all with the promise that they wouldn’t touch or manipulate Keith.</p><p> </p><p>And what had they done?</p><p> </p><p>Lead Keith onto to believe some lies and show him that fucking episode with Curtis.</p><p> </p><p>It hadn’t been like. Shiro hadn’t remembered it in that way. It had been an awkward moment—one to endure, not enjoy. The show had painted it as this grand sweeping amalgamation of events—a triumph.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wanted to vomit just thinking about it.</p><p> </p><p>He should have told Keith about it. He shouldn’t have left Keith alone, trusting the show not to touch him. He shouldn’t have continued on wit this show. He should’ve run the first time Keith had made his heart beat, damn expectations, taking his boy with him.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s life was a list of should and should not have.</p><p> </p><p>But Shiro had wanted and he had believed and these were consequences.</p><p> </p><p>The first few hours Shiro was simply desperate to find him, to set his all straight. He would beg, grovel, plead, anything to make this right. He would erase the events if he could. If Keith asked him to reset time, he would try, he would find a way to do so. Anything his boy wanted he would give him.</p><p> </p><p>But at forty-eight hours, Shiro just wanted to know Keith was okay. He didn’t care if he never wanted to see him again, if he wanted nothing to do with him. Shiro only had to see him once more, to know he was alright and safe. He would soak in the image and cherish the memories and that would be enough.</p><p> </p><p>He tried not to, but his mind went unbidden to various scenarios, each more horrific than the last.</p><p> </p><p>LA wasn’t exactly the safest neighborhood around. Keith had been on foot, with no cell phone. Anyone could have seen his boy, seen the gift he was, and…</p><p> </p><p>Shiro told himself that if Keith had been dead in a ditch somewhere they would’ve found him by now. The show was combing the area around the manor. He, Matt, and Pidge were stuck in Colorado, drifting from the apartment to the Keith’s shop and back again, hoping for a different result. It was the definition of insanity.</p><p> </p><p>But maybe there was some outcropping that hadn’t been checked. Some gorge that hadn’t been scavenged. Some road that hadn’t been traversed and his boy had been lying there for days.</p><p> </p><p>Such thoughts made him sick, made him frantic because he was sitting here and Keith could be anywhere and he could have found him a day ago if he just knew where to look. He had never felt so powerless, not since his days overseas.</p><p> </p><p>He would pray to any god, agree to any bargain, if only to have the knowledge that Keith was safe and okay.</p><p> </p><p>In front of him, as if sensing his thoughts, Kosmo let out a low whine.</p><p> </p><p>At first, Kosmo had been ecstatic to see him. Shiro had wanted to cry as the big beast tried to jump on him, tongue lolling out and tail wagging. His enthusiasm had waned though when Keith hadn’t been with him. Joy had turned to confusion and Kosmo now followed Shiro like a shadow.</p><p> </p><p>“If I knew where he was, I promise you, I would bring him home,” Shiro told him.</p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t stand another day of this, of the waiting. Shiro told himself he would give it a few more hours, listen as Pidge and Matt speculated and worried, then he would take off. He would scour every corner, every street, every town and city if he had do, every stretch of land, both explored and unexplored.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t care what Matt and Pidge had to say; he couldn’t just sit here.</p><p> </p><p>Matt had fretted over him after the first twenty-four hours.</p><p> </p><p>“You need to sleep, man,” he had said.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro didn’t know how Matt expected him to. When he closed his eyes, he saw dark raven hair, violet eyes. Heard a rusty laugh and felt calloused fingertips tracing along his skin.</p><p> </p><p>It was a different kind of torment, one the military hadn’t prepared him for.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wondered if he had died at some point and this was his own personal hell. An eternity of waiting and yearning with nothing of substance to hold onto.</p><p> </p><p>When Pidge blurted out “I know where he is,” Shiro knew if this was hell it wasn’t without its hope.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>The lady at the diner strongly advised him against traversing the Sonoran Desert when the wind was as furious as it was.</p><p> </p><p>Well, word for word, what she had said was “Sweetie, you’re more likely to drive off a cliff but you do you.”</p><p> </p><p>Maybe if Shiro had sense he would wait. Pidge had seemed confident in her assumption and if Keith wasn’t here…</p><p> </p><p>No, Shiro wouldn’t entertain that thought. Keith was here. He was within grasp and Shiro only had to find the door to the cabin. A hurricane would not keep him away.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro lived with one foot in the present and one foot in the past as he drove. There was nothing but brown dust on all sides, no distinguishable landmarks until Shiro was right on top of them.</p><p> </p><p>Overseas, he had lived like this. The world had been a constant swirl of chaos, barely visible through his googles. Sand had invaded every crevice, until he felt like it was a part of his skin. The only sound aside from the howl of the window had been the crackle of his comms in his ear.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had thought those days were behind him.</p><p> </p><p>Keith, he was doing this for Keith. Raven hair and gentle eyes were at the end of this.</p><p> </p><p>He cursed as he swerved to avoid a rock formation that jumped out in front of him. He heard his jeep scrape it, despite his efforts, and he winced. Well, the rental place wasn’t going to be happy.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro would buy them fifty replacements as long as the car got him to Keith.</p><p> </p><p>His hands shook as he tried to control the wheel. Maybe Matt had been right about the needing sleep thing. He wasn’t stopping now. He would get out and walk if he had to, comb through the very grains of sand himself.</p><p> </p><p>Nothing would stop him—.</p><p> </p><p>Except maybe that.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro shouted as he slammed on the brakes. Ahead a gorge loomed, his jeep tilting very close to the edge. The tires skidded, his jeep continuing with is forward momentum. Shiro cursed as he pulled on the emergency brake, slamming his foot nearly to the floor.</p><p> </p><p>His front tires tipped forward. They teetered on the edge. The bulk of the jeep kept them from slipping forward. Shiro managed to reverse and then pulled the car into park as his heart thundered away in his chest.</p><p> </p><p>Okay, this wasn’t working. Shiro could acknowledge that now. He was more likely to end up dead before finding the cabin.</p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t head back. He didn’t even know what direction the diner and gas station were which was a rookie mistake. Always remember your direction, never let panic or fear make you lose your orientation. His commander would’ve clocked him over the head for such an oversight.</p><p> </p><p>He would rest, right where he was. Maybe a little further back from the gorge, Shiro realized as he thought about it. These storms didn’t last forever. He would sit here and he would wait until—.</p><p> </p><p>To his right, a shape was barely visible. At first Shiro thought it was an outcropping, though oddly shaped. Maybe he could pull his car over to it to provide some coverage from the storm—.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t an outcropping, he realized, staring.</p><p> </p><p>That was the point of a roof.</p><p> </p><p>Yanking on his wheel and pushing the car into drive, Shiro swerved and tumbled forward, heart in his throat.</p><p> </p><p>There was only one cabin, the lady had told him.</p><p> </p><p>This had to be it. It just had to be.</p><p> </p><p>He was out and running as soon as he was close enough. Yes, yes that was a roof and that was a porch and that was a door with a set of boards pulled off it. And that was a car under the car port and this couldn’t all be a coincidence. It couldn’t be.</p><p> </p><p>“KEITH!” he screamed, but the wind tore his voice from him. He continued screaming, heedless of it was effective or not.</p><p> </p><p>“Keith!” he roared, banging on the door. He tried the handle but it wouldn’t budge in his grip. He looked to the windows but they were dirty for him to see anything aside from the suggestion of shapes. “Keith, are you there?! Please… Please be there. Baby? Please, it’s me. Open up. I just… I want to talk.”</p><p> </p><p>It occurred to him that perhaps Keith didn’t want to see him. Last he had been told, Shiro had lied and was messing around with some other guy.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s fist hit against the door with a hollow thud. He wanted to explain, to plea, but his tongue felt swollen in his mouth. He didn’t hear anything aside from the storm, not footsteps or scuffles.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Please</em>,” he said, letting his head hit the door. This couldn’t have all been for nothing.</p><p> </p><p>He knew then that just seeing Keith wouldn’t be enough. It would never be enough. Not that he now knew what Keith tasted like, what he felt like. He would try, he reasoned. He would try and plead and grovel and hope it was enough—.</p><p> </p><p>The door opened. Shiro nearly fell through but caught himself on the frame.</p><p> </p><p>Keith stood there, exactly as he remembered.</p><p> </p><p>It hadn’t all been a dream. “You’re real.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro felt disconnected from his body as he lunged forward. His hands made contact with flesh, warm and alive and real, and he felt something in him settle.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>The frantic energy was gone from Shiro. Despite the fact that he was going past forty eight hours without rest, he was very much awake and in the moment as he stared down at Keith, sleep the furthest thing from his mind.</p><p> </p><p>He could sleep after.</p><p> </p><p>His boy was here and he was letting him touch him, arching into every touch as if it were the first.</p><p> </p><p>It was more than Shiro had ever dared to hope.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro, please,” Keith panted, a flush sitting so pretty in his cheeks. He was at Shiro’s mercy, stretched out, his shirt pushed up and his pants yanked down.</p><p> </p><p>They had time. For the first time in forever, they had time. No one was coming to interrupt them, no demands of the show, nothing to distract them. And Shiro was going to cherish this.</p><p> </p><p>They had time to indulge. So Shiro kept Keith right on the edge, feeling like he could fall apart into a million pieces but not giving him the opportunity.</p><p> </p><p>“H-He gave you a hickey,” his boy had said and Shiro would do anything in the world to erase that broken tone from his voice forever.</p><p> </p><p>He would get ‘Property of Keith Kogane’ tattooed on his forehead if it made his boy happy.</p><p> </p><p>Due to the lack of expertise and supplies, that would have to wait. For now, he would do everything in his power to convince Keith that he was the only one for him, and vice-versa.</p><p> </p><p>He tightened his grip on Keith, pumping him nice and slow, working him towards the edge again. Keith squirmed, hips chanting, trying to chase the feeling but Shiro pinned him down. When Keith’s hand drifted down, trying to provide him with more friction, Shiro batted the limb away with a snarl.</p><p> </p><p>He would remind his boy just how good he was at this. That Keith hadn’t made a mistake, hadn’t misplaced his trust.</p><p> </p><p>“You understand now?” he asked. His boy’s eyes were watering this time. He had kept his boy on edge enough, he realized. He needed to give him some relief. “You are it for me. Never doubt that. I want you today. I’m going to want you tomorrow. I’ll want you ages from now. I am going to cherish you. If you'll let me.”</p><p> </p><p>He punctuated every word with a pump to Keith’s dick. Keith’s leakage provided his hand with a smooth glide.</p><p> </p><p>“Understand, Keith?”</p><p> </p><p>Keith nodded. He panted, open mouth. He twitched in Shiro’s hand and Shiro knew he was close, so very close.</p><p> </p><p>“Please, Shiro.”</p><p> </p><p>He would never make his boy beg. Tipping forward to kiss him, Shiro gave him what he wanted. Keith spilled onto his hand with a shout, twisting and mewling beneath him. Shiro kept up the friction, eking a few more spurts out of him.</p><p> </p><p>He never wanted this to stop. Wanted days and nights of this. Weeks and years. He would never be satisfied.</p><p> </p><p>“Your turn,” Keith said when he got his breath back, one side of his mouth kicking up into a grin that Shiro loved.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro knew they had to talk. But he was still achingly hard in his pants and Keith was still spread out like a meal before him so…maybe talking could wait.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro bent his legs—God he loved how flexible he was—and slotted their hips together. Keith whined at the sensation. His dick was very red and looked very sore. Shiro made a note to kiss it better after this.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro started out slow, nothing his boy was still sensitive. He rutted their hips together, arms braced on either side of Keith. He stared at Keith as he did so, noting every swipe of his tongue, every twitch of a lash.</p><p> </p><p>No, he would never get enough of this.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Okay, we have one more chapter from Shiro's POV and then we'll have to say goodbye to the Bachelor-verse.  We had a good run and Don't Let it Go to Your Head is almost had 500k?! OMG, where did you all come from?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And now for pointless smut! You're welcome!</p><p>This one's for all the fans from Don't Let It Go to Your Head. I hope you all enjoy it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Let It Consume You</b>
</p><p> </p><p>“Matt, what if he doesn’t like it? What if he says no? What if—?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sugar Bear.” Matt slammed the refrigerator door closed after putting away the soda. “I’m you best friend so I say this with all the love in my heart. Quit being stupid. He’s going to say yes. He’s going to love the ring and the house.”</p><p> </p><p>They were currently in said house, stocking the kitchen with supplies for the surprise party Shiro was planning.</p><p> </p><p>In hindsight, Shiro maybe shouldn’t be planning both as a surprise for their one year anniversary. They had talked about getting a house and Shiro had been lurking on Zillow but they hadn’t even looked at any together yet. Between Keith’s classes and Shiro’s job, they hadn’t had much of an opportunity.</p><p> </p><p>But when Shiro had found this, he had left work early to check it out and made an offer before leaving with his father’s money because if that wasn’t the biggest F U to the man, he didn’t know what was. On the drive home, the enormity of his decision had just hit him but he had gotten the call later that night that his offer had been accepted so there wasn’t like there was time to second guess. Keith had been asleep next time and it was while he was staring at his sleeping boy that he could picture it all too early. Late nights and early mornings. The house had checked all the boxes. A garage big enough for Keith, a yard big enough for Kosmo, a master suite big enough for Shiro, and a kitchen was painted golden every morning.</p><p> </p><p>Keith could be upset that Shiro had made such a move without consulting him, but Shiro was also in love with the idea of surprising Keith. He hadn’t done anything grand in a while. It was a gamble but one that he was sticking to now that he had the keys in hand.</p><p> </p><p>While the house had been a spontaneous decision, the ring had been planned with more thought.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you want to?” Shiro had asked him one night. He laid with his head resting in Keith’s lap, peering up at him. “Get married?”</p><p> </p><p>A flush had crept up Keith’s cheeks. His fingers ran across Shiro’s scalp, playing with the hairs Shiro was letting grow out. “I guess I’m not opposed to it? Either way, I’m fine.”</p><p> </p><p>“Think we could convince Pidge to be the flower girl with a dress and all?”</p><p> </p><p>“She would <em>murder </em>you.”</p><p> </p><p>They hadn’t spoken about it aside from hypothetical. Still, the image of a ring on Keith’s finger, a matching on his, haunted him.</p><p> </p><p>And, to be fair, his motives weren’t completely from a place of good intention. He still, maybe naively, thought a ring might dissuade other pursuers.</p><p> </p><p>It came as a surprise to no one, save for Keith, that Keith had a bit of a fan base since the airing of Altea’s Finest. For months after, whenever they went, someone would always recognize or want a picture. His boy was never rude, though Shiro could tell he was uncomfortable with the attention.</p><p> </p><p>Others took Keith not saying ‘Fuck off’ in so many words as an invitation.</p><p> </p><p>Even when Shiro was standing right there.</p><p> </p><p>Just the other day, they were at a bar with Lance. Shiro had left for maybe five seconds to get their drinks, only to come back and find his seat taken and an unknown man leering at Keith, telling him how much he had loved the season and that Keith was his first pick.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro had somehow managed to keep from smashing the glasses over the asshole’s hand. Lance had snorted upon seeing him. He didn’t know what his expression had been, but, upon seeing it, the guy had ran off.</p><p> </p><p>He spent the better part of the evening glued to Keith’s side, having learned his lesson.</p><p> </p><p>“He was just being friendly,” Keith had said on their drive home.</p><p> </p><p>“Keith,” Shiro had said with patience honed from experience, “what do you think they’re hoping that leads to?”</p><p> </p><p>And then Shiro had showed him, in not so many words.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t blame his boy, would never even think it. Keith couldn’t help but be intoxicating with his beauty. Shiro had seen him early in the morning and even with his hair mused and eyes sleepy, there was still something enticing about him.</p><p> </p><p>But Shiro was biased.</p><p> </p><p>He hadn’t truly felt like he had been planning on proposing. He had sized Keith’s ring finger while he had been sleeping just as a necessity. His Google search history continued many ring related searches just to sate his curiosity.</p><p> </p><p>But then on his lunch break one day, he had found himself at a ring shop, just for shits and giggles, and...well, a purchase had been made.</p><p> </p><p>The ring was cast in onyx so dark it had the faintest traces of purple in it. The color reminded him of Keith’s eyes. Shiro had spent many a long night staring at it, then at Keith, then back to the ring, contemplating.</p><p> </p><p>He was a romantic. He knew this. While others didn’t necessarily need the vows, Shiro wanted them. He wanted that symbol, that recognizable bond that no court on Earth could refute. He wanted to use the word ‘mine’ in a very real context.</p><p> </p><p>Now, he was doubting every choice that he had made these past few weeks. Had it been too much, too soon? Was he rushing into things and risking ruining what he had with Keith? He should’ve talked to him, damn the surprise aspect.</p><p> </p><p>This had been dreams before. Unreal and unsubstantial and incapable of hurting him.</p><p> </p><p>Now...</p><p> </p><p>“But what if,” he said to Matt, storing the plastic cups for the party under the sink.</p><p> </p><p>He felt a hand on his shoulder. He glanced up to see Matt there, a serious look on his face.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro, Keith loves you. Look, Kit-Kat’s like a cat. If he didn’t like you, he wouldn’t hang around you. You two have been sappily in love for a year now and show no signs of slowing things down, despite what that means for the rest of us.”</p><p> </p><p>“I warned you to knock,” Shiro reminded him,</p><p> </p><p>“And I have learned my lesson. I will knock on every door I encounter from here on out because I don’t know if my eyes could take seeing your bare ass again. But, listen.” Matt clamped down on both of his shoulders, looking him directly in the eyes. “This isn’t a mistake. Keith isn’t Adam. He’s not going to freak out or shut down. Okay, he might freak out on the actual day of the wedding but who doesn’t freak out as they’re walking down the aisle? This <em>is </em>going to be your future.”</p><p> </p><p>And oh, how Shiro wanted it. He had thought that having Keith would sate his wants, but he found they burned all the same, in a different capacity.</p><p> </p><p>He wanted a ring on Keith’s finger. A ring on his own. A legal document. He wanted to use the words ‘my fiancé’ and then ‘my husband.’ He wanted nights and morning and evenings and weekends and everything they had now but more.</p><p> </p><p>He wanted forever.</p><p> </p><p>“The true test,” Matt said, “will be seeing if you can propose without crying. And I got some onions at the store so we can start prepping you.”</p><p> </p><p>“You did what now?”</p><p> </p><p>“Where’s the knives?” Matt asked, turning from him. “By the end of the hour, I guarantee, not even Lion King could make you cry. We’ll make you a hardened man.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Before Shiro proposed, there was one small item he had to check off.</p><p> </p><p>He was an old-fashioned guy.</p><p> </p><p>He knocked on the door, heart in his throat, and waited.</p><p> </p><p>Pidge threw open the door, a blanket shawl draped across her shoulders and a smudge on the lens of her glasses. “Shiro?” She peered past him and he could see she was disappointed that Keith wasn’t there. “Not that I’m not thrilled to see you, but what…”</p><p> </p><p>“I need to ask you something. Can I come in? It’ll only take a few minutes.”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro sat perched on Pidge and Keith’s old couch. Despite it having been months since Kosmo had been here, there was still dog hair embedded into the fabric. He and Keith had lived here for the first two months of their off-air relationship, but the close quarters proved to be not ideal in the long run. “How’s Sam?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s good. He’s back teaching so Mom’s loving having him on Earth, you know. I think his flying days are behind him but he’s had a good run.” Pidge perched across from him, eyes brightening. “Wait is this about your anniversary? Do you need my help?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sort of.” He felt the ring box in his coat pocket, a heavy weight though he knew it barely weighed it at one pound.</p><p> </p><p>Pidge clapped her hands together. “Whatever it is, I am in! So what do you need from me? Distract Keith? Oh, I can decorate your apartment in rose petals while you guys are out. Or—!”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro sat the box on the coffee table. Pidge fell silent, staring.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro cleared his throat. He had practiced this for hours in the mirror. This should not have been so difficult. “I wanted to ask Keith to marry me. And I wanted to ask for your blessing to do so.”</p><p> </p><p>Pidge blinked. “Me?”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re his family. And I’m an old-fashioned guy.” He swallowed, only occurring to him now the reality of what he was asking. “I promise I’ll take care of him.” Pidge could say no. She could—.</p><p> </p><p>Burst into tears as she hugged him fiercely. Well, that had been low on his list of expectations but it wasn’t unwelcome.</p><p> </p><p>“Of course!” she wailed. “Like you even had to ask, you dummy! Oh my god, you guys are going to get married!”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s breath came easier. “He hasn’t said yes, yet,” Shiro told her, putting a comforting hand on her back.</p><p> </p><p>She punched him in the arm, sniffling. “He won’t say no!” She rubbed at her eyes, pushing glasses up to her forehead. “God, look at me. I didn’t plan on crying today. Look at what you did to me.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, you’re not.” She sniffed at him. “But that’s okay.” Her grin grew, eyes lighting up. “You’re getting married!” she screamed as she bounced on her toes. “Do you have a date? Venue? Do I get to be Keith’s best man?”</p><p> </p><p>“I need to ask him first, Pidge.”</p><p> </p><p>“When? Wait, it’s at the surprise party, isn’t it?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro nodded. “It’s, uh… It’ll be at our house—.”</p><p> </p><p>“You bought a house?!” she screeched. “Okay, wait I need to sit down.” She did so, only to pop up back onto her toes. “Does it have a spare bedroom?”</p><p> </p><p>“It does and we’ll paint it green, just for you.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>Shiro did get through the proposal without crying, but due to Matt’s efforts. Seeing Keith, as it always did, settled something anxious and slippery within him. Shiro’s nerves, which he thought would make him throw up at one point, died the second he saw Keith’s smile.</p><p> </p><p>Now, the ring was on his Keith’s finger. His pale skin was interrupted with a line of dark onyx and it was everything Shiro had dreamed of and more.</p><p> </p><p>They stood in their empty kitchen, their friends long gone. Keith was perched on the counter top, Shiro bent between his legs, tracing the ring’s shape against Keith’s skin.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you actually think I would say no?” Keith asked. He reached out and swiped a glob of icing from a remaining piece of cake. He licked it from his finger and Shiro watched his tongue for far too long.</p><p> </p><p>“I never seriously sat down and asked you if you wanted marriage,” Shiro reminded him. “I probably should have and I’m sorry if—.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith silenced him by grabbing his face and planting a kiss that tasted of sugar on his lips. “You don’t have to be sorry. It was a good surprise.” He held his hand up to the light. The ring gleamed, a perfect fit. “We’ll have to get you one.”</p><p> </p><p>“We will.” Shiro leaned forward, chasing Keith’s lips.</p><p> </p><p>After a few minutes, Keith pulled back. ”So should we… Should we christen the new place?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro raised a brow. “What did you have in mind, baby?”</p><p> </p><p>His boy shrugged, flushing. “What did <em>you </em>have in mind?”</p><p> </p><p>He loved that his boy trusted him with this, even after all this time. That he trusted him with his body and to make him feel good. It never got old.</p><p> </p><p>With slow hands, Shiro pushed Keith’s shirt up and off. His hair stuck up. Shiro smoothed it down as he kissed him, hands mapping out the skin that had become available to him. Keith widened his legs, making Shiro slot even closer. Keith let out a soft gasp as his lips found his neck and bit down on a pulse point.</p><p> </p><p>His gaze slid to the ice bucket within reach an idea struck him.</p><p> </p><p>Plucking an ice cub free from its melting companions, Shiro slipped it between his lips.</p><p> </p><p>“What—,” Keith started to say when Shiro paused with his ministrations, only to shout and arch off the counter when Shiro returned and traced the ice cube down Keith’s neck. Between his lips and Keith’s skin, the ice didn’t last for long, resulting in tiny ripples along his boy’s skin that he shuddered through. Shiro tongued at the area he had just iced, warming the skin and chasing away the wetness.</p><p> </p><p>Keith panted beneath him. “T-That’s not fair.”</p><p> </p><p>“You want to do something about it?” Shiro asked him but his boy only tugged him back towards him for a filthy kiss.</p><p> </p><p>Keith shuddered as he heard Shiro take another ice cube. Shiro bent his boy back onto the counter, leaving the length of his chest exposed. Gripping this one between his teeth, Shiro started slow, tracing down a path on Keith’s sternum. He could feel his boy’s erection, straining against the fabric of his jeans, but ignored it for now, stopping his path right onto Keith’s belly button.</p><p> </p><p>“D-Do you think,” Keith stammered, “that curtains would look good right there over the sink?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro nearly dropped the ice cube from his mouth. He stared up at Keith baffled that he could be thinking about curtains at a time like this. His boy gave him a smirk, head tilted back and hair fanning out on the granite of the counter top.</p><p> </p><p>Fine, if that was how he wanted to play it.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro let what remained of the ice cube drop onto the hollow of Keith’s belly button. Keith shivered as the ice melted, squirming but Shiro held his hips fast. He reached for another ice cube, keeping his movements slow and deliberate.</p><p> </p><p>When he gripped this one between his teeth this time, he stared down at Keith, letting the anticipation build.</p><p> </p><p>Then, he went for Keith’s nipple.</p><p> </p><p>Keith shouted, hips jerking and he felt his dick pulse beneath the fabric. Shiro pinned him down, making him feel as he traced around the bud. He prodded at the peak, keeping the ice right there.</p><p> </p><p>“Shiro,” Keith moaned.</p><p> </p><p>Good, his boy was focused solely on him now. He wouldn’t stand to come in at second place to curtains again.</p><p> </p><p>When the ice had melted enough, Shiro wrapped his lips around the pebbled bud. Keith shivered as he nipped and sucked, lips still cold enough to cause a dizzying array of sensations.</p><p> </p><p>“Y-You should see what Romelle got us,” Keith panted out.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro lifted his head from his assault, looking in the direction of the pink, deceptively innocent gift bag.</p><p> </p><p>He left his boy to grab it, causing Keith to scream, “Shiro!” as the sensations all but vanished.</p><p>“Hush, baby. I’ll deal with you.” Shiro glanced in the bag and the glittering bottle of amber lube winked at him. He grinned as he read the label.</p><p> </p><p>He returned to his boy, still on the counter top but sitting up and looking very put out that he had been abandoned. Shiro returned to his place between Keith’s spread legs and pushed him back to lie horizontal with one hand on his sternum.</p><p> </p><p>“You ever been eaten out before?” Shiro asked, already knowing the answer.</p><p> </p><p>A flush spread up Keith’s chest. “I think you know the answer to that. But do you really…? I mean isn’t that a bit…?”</p><p> </p><p>“We don’t have to,” Shiro said to him, reminded again of how innocent his boy was. It still baffled Keith that Shiro could take any pleasure in just servicing Keith. “But I want to.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith bite down his lip, then nodded his ascension.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro wasted no time going for Keith’s fly.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, Shiro. Do you want to take this… I mean, this is the counter top. We’ll serve food on here!”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro batted Keith’s hands away and tugged his zipper down. “And right now we’re about to have my favorite meal.”</p><p> </p><p>Keith’s head landed on the counter top with a thunk as he groaned.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strike>X</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>It was exactly how Shiro had imagined it.</p><p> </p><p>Only better.</p><p> </p><p>Granted, his visions had had actual furniture, but other than that it was all the same.</p><p> </p><p>In the fireplace, the fire ate away at the logs Shiro had hefted in from the garage. He and Keith were spread out before it, wrapped in blankets Shiro had brought over in his car. Sound proved cavernous in the empty room, their voices bouncing off the walls.</p><p> </p><p>His boy was a pale line of perfection, the slope of his back bared to him. Shiro traced fingers down his spine and watched as he shivered. He pressed heard into the dimples on his back, wanted to kiss and nip at them but also too tired to move.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m pretty sure that what we did is illegal in some countries,” Keith mumbled.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you complaining?”</p><p> </p><p>“I came, like, five times. What do I have to complain about?”</p><p> </p><p>Shiro’s chest puffed at that remainder. Oh no, curtains were the farthest thing from his boy’s after that.</p><p> </p><p>Keith turned and Shiro was rewarded with the sight of his kiss-swollen lips and glittery eyes. Keith tucked his arms beneath him and peered up at Shiro.</p><p> </p><p>“So, when do you want to have the wedding?”</p><p> </p><p>As soon as possible. Shiro would call a judge here now if Keith would let him.</p><p> </p><p>But, wait, they had promised Pidge she could be the best man. Damn it, they had to plan an actual event then.</p><p> </p><p>“Let’s figure that out in the morning.” Shiro inhaled and let his head come to rest in the curve of Keith’s shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re never productive in the mornings,” Keith reminded him.</p><p> </p><p>“We are at one thing.”</p><p> </p><p>“True.” Keith rolled on his back and, like a magnet, Shiro followed him, leaning over him so he caged him in, so his entire world was taken up by only Keith.</p><p> </p><p>“You think the show would offer to foot the bill?” Shiro asked.</p><p> </p><p>Keith laughed. “Call up Allura and ask her. Only, I think after the last season, she’s got more than enough on her plate.”</p><p> </p><p>It might be for the best. Shiro didn’t want to share Keith with the world more than he already had to.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey.” Keith’s voice was rough and quiet in the space. “You know I love you, right? I know I don’t say it enough and I’m not as good as you are with showing—.</p><p> </p><p>Shiro swallowed his next words, chest feeling like it was glowing, feeling like he could float right up into the stratosphere. “I know, Keith. I know.”</p><p> </p><p>And, he did.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>It is on this day we say good-bye to the dumbassery that was the Sheith bachelor verse. Who knows if we may meet again but we'll always have that memory of Keith falling head first out of a limo on night one.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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